Nuevo Noise, Remezcla and Spotify’s collaborative playlist, returns for a summer edition — and this time, we’re back with a roster that includes Kablito, Omar Apollo, and Paulo Londra, all musicians who play with the conventions of lo-fi R&B, trap, and throwback 90s pop.
Listen to the latest edition below, and be sure to follow the playlist on Spotify. Scroll down for a primer on five of the artists you should know from this month’s edition.
Omar Apollo - "Erase"
Omar Apollo’s track “Erase” opens with a set of whirring, warbling guitar chords that feel heavy with haze and off-kilter trills. The first few seconds of the song might suggest he’s just another DIY act experimenting with stripped-back bedroom recordings, but once he begins to sing, it’s clear that the 20-year-old Mexican-American singer from Indiana is offering something new to the lo-fi tradition. Instead of loading his music up with gauzy, faraway vocals, Apollo puts his rich, soulful tone front and center, playing with modern variations of R&B. Throughout his new EP Stereo, Apollo constructs and deconstructs this style, coyly flexing his range and showing what he’s got up his sleeve. –Julyssa Lopez
PAUZA - “Ildé Pa' Beberte”
Being the first is never easy, but PAUZA pioneers with grace. Made up of Havana natives Zahira Sánchez and Paula Fernández, PAUZA is Cuba’s first female electronic duo, and they’ve been spinning up a blend of Afro-Cuban throwbacks, deep house, and techno since attending an exclusive workshop for women DJs and producers at the prestigious Laboratorio Nacional de Música Electroacústica. These days, they’re unleashing new music into the world, and kinetic tracks like the recent “Ildé Pa’ Beberte” are a reminder of the skills and complex dynamics that have given these trailblazers their undisputed place in Cuba’s electronic music history. –Julyssa Lopez
Paulo Londra - "Dimelo"
The direction of Latin trap remains one of the Spanish-language music industry’s biggest question marks, but for those who think the genre needs to clean up its act for radio consumption, Argentine rapper Paulo Londra offers a kind of outline for what this might actually look like. At 19, he’s gotten recognition from titans like J Balvin, all while avoiding rhymes about drugs and violence. There’s still braggadocio to spare on songs like “Dimelo,” which flaunts the languid, laid-back flow that has allowed Londra to come up in the genre. –Julyssa Lopez
duendita - "i'ma get you"
Queens singer duendita makes songs that glide together effortlessly — and they’d appear to be gentle, easy listening, were it not for the meticulously thought-out production choices and complex thematic material that goes into her music. On “i’ma get you,” for example, she tackles what she calls “a societal hatred for women” with boundless grace, wisdom, and dignity, delicately juxtaposing a winding piano medley with skittering synths and haunting echoes. Even though the graduate of the NYU Clive Davis Institute is in her early 20s, her mature tone adds a profundity to her message, as though we’re hearing from a wise sage whose lived countless past lives. –Julyssa Lopez
Kablito - "Puto Colchón"
Bold, buoyant choruses over minimal basslines form the backbone of Kablito’s music in a way that enthusiastically announces that throwbacks are back. The Ecuador-born singer, whose real name is Karen Freire, happily channels 80s and 90s old-school pizzazz into playful songs like “Puto Colchón,” a snappy electronic jewel off of her EP Telenovela (a perfect name for tracks that deal in bubbly, high-gloss nostalgia.) Similar to the LA-based singer Nite Jewel, Freire wields a chirpy falsetto that is a clear ode to the legendary Janet Jackson — only we get a new version of this sound through Kablito’s lyrics en español. –Julyssa Lopez