Recently whenever I've been driving people places in the Comfymobile, I always end up playing Spanish artist Lorena Álvarez's album Anónimo. Lovely, goofy, wild stuff, full of joy and ideas.
Thirteen years later she's put out one album and some EPs in multiple different directions, and now we are here in 2025 after a lot of everything and she has a new album called El poder sobre una misma. The trademark exuberance is still there in wonderful songs like "Increíble" and "Los pensamientos" but this one has a lot more contemplative moments. Not necessarily background listening for trips across Portland in an automobile or for doing office work, but there's a lot of introspective joy to be had. And the title track, a dorky polka about the joys of hitting rock bottom and finding a way out, is delightful, particularly when the million multitracked vocals hit at the end.
In the video for "Increíble," she gets to roll in tall grass, pretend to fly a helicopter, hang out with chickens and goats, drink a beer with her name on it, and climb a mountain. I guess I've done three of these things? I like it as an aspirational lifestyle video:
I can't seem to find a single way to legally obtain this album in the US. Montgrí won't ship to our backwards country thanks to our trade situation. Oh well, streaming it is.
