How does Monsieur Periné do it? How do they make swing jazz sound cool in 2016? And how do they get cuter by the day without ever being annoying? Take this new video for their song “Nuestra Canción,” which was the first single off their Latin Grammy- (and gringo Grammy-) nominated 2015 album Caja de Música. The Bogotá-based group plies their “suin a la Colombiana” while frolicking (and sewing?) among green hills dotted with wildflowers. It should all be too quirky to bear. Instead, it’s great.
Singer Catalina García swoops through the bittersweet but upbeat love song, all smiles. There’s a spareness and a spark-throwing energy in the song that The Strokes would envy, and there’s a perfect salsa breakdown in the middle and happy tears in García’s voice. The trio, who won this year’s Latin Grammy for Best New Artist, play their own kind of jazz. They’re not trying to revive some sepia-stained past; this is just the kind of music they do, and they do it very well.
Like a hazy memory of an old flame, the video, directed by Christian Schmid Rincon, is veiled by a soft vintage filter, and buried in florals and romance, it could have been directed by Baz Luhrmann – complete with Luhrmannesque humor. The Periné gang know who they are and they seem to be enjoying it more than ever.
Check out Monsieur Periné’s upcoming tour dates below:
April 27 – Musical Instrument Museum – Phoenix, AZ
April 29 – Isla Vista School – Goleta, CA
May 1 – Marjorie Luke Theatre – Santa Barbara, CA
May 2 – The Echo – Los Angeles, CA
May 3 – Music Box – San Diego, CA
May 5 – The Chapel – San Francisco, CA