Lido Pimienta – La Belleza Review

What does Lido Pimienta sound like?

Alternative Colombian music seeped in centuries of heritage and devotion.

The review ‘La Belleza’ by Lido Pimienta

After the breakout, stunning album ‘Miss Colombia‘, Lido Pimienta shifts gears completely for her third album ‘La Belleza’. Charting her own relationship separation and reconciliation, Lido turned to European composers, Georgian chants, and the orchestra for her next album. Whilst Latin America still bubbles underneath, this album has dramatic scale and scope in a way that takes a few listens to appreciate.

The album has nine tracks, and each one feels like a symphonic movement. ‘Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna)’ is the calm before the storm. Lido’s voice gently unfurls over hues of strings like a hair unravelling. It sounds innocent, free, light and hopeful. It will be a while before we feel that dynamic again, as the orchestration that follows is dense and foreboding. ‘Ahora’ launches us in with bass-shattering timpanis, rigid string marches, squeezes oboes and woodwinds. A huge choir erupts, signalling this album’s deeply devotional undertone. The heaviness of the track is only lightened by Pimienta’s own voice. It’s like love is marching to war, be that love with another, or love within yourself. The word “ahora” translates as “now” and this word appears repeatedly across the album. It’s like we’re having a musical checkpoint on how we are feeling right in that moment. Perhaps it’s charting our growth in real time…

‘Quiero Que Me Beses’ is a beautiful, more rhythmic track. Bringing in clever polyrhythms over flutes, explosive choirs, and some heartwrenching vocals from Lido, we have possibly the standout track on the album. It merges culture, history, orchestration, and such a huge sound into something unique. I could only hear Lido Pimienta creating something quite like this. Cathartic, sorrowful, powerful, and beautiful. This is the track to test out if this album is for you.

‘Mango’ is a harp and devotional powerhouse of a vocal from Lido Pimienta. As the harp actively avoids creating a full motif, it lets Lido’s voice take centre stage. Here, she likens tasting the fruit of love to eating a juicy Mango, and I’m reminded of Bjork-like feelings, specifically her brass-focused album ‘Volta’. The foreboding timpani, brass, and string arrangement of ‘Aún Te Quiero’ is sublime. It booms so loud and hard that the actual mastered recording has to dip some of the instruments because of the bass thunder! Its direct, rhythmic, dark undertones don’t stop Lido from creating one of the catchier riffs and motifs on the album, though.

We then move into ‘El Dembow del Tiempo’, which merges Dembow rhythms with the oppressive, heavy, and thickly layered orchestration. It sounds like the final march towards a reckoning and seamlessly transitions into the taut and romantic tragedy of ‘¿Quién Tiene La Luz? (El Perdón)’. Here, dissonant strings swell and overflow in a mournful outpouring of lamenting sorrow. Reminding me slightly of overwrought early cinema soundtracks of dramatic love betrayals, this has the same tone. Another seamless transition takes us into the lighter, airier ‘Tengo Que Ir’. This brass-led piece includes playful xylophone cascades over a cathartic brass motif. Signalling that Lido has to leave, the xylophone acts like footsteps towards a future light. ‘Busca La Luz’ then ends the album with an uplifting affirmation and declaration to ‘look for the light’. For the first time since the opening track, and perhaps ‘Mango’, we have open orchestral swells, and joy with abandon. None of the production has changed, but the oppression twists towards an epiphany that opens up the music to hope and wonder. Be it triumphant trumpets, celebratory cymbal crashes, or the swirling choir arrangements – it is a fantastic and fitting finale.

‘La Belleza’ is a difficult album to write about because the journey for each listener will be heavily skewed by their reaction to thick, heavy orchestration. The production decisions make the album feel bold, overwhelming, and at times harshly cold. The orchestration channels a church pipe organ’s power. It’s all or nothing, and so it is wise that this album clocks in at just under half an hour. Whilst the album is a challenging but rewarding listen, I’ve found more to love about it upon each listen. Unlike ‘Miss Colombia’, where you could dance to complex lyrics and ideas, this doesn’t bathe you subtly; it drowns you in it. I think this will be an album I’ll appreciate more the longer I spend with it, and that Lido Pimienta has released another work of art. I just need to wrestle with it a bit longer to fully appreciate it.

Recommended track: Quiero Que Me Beses

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