The way Girl Ultra tells it, her new song “Ella, Tú y Yo” was a necessary pain – a creative block that the Mexican R&B singer could only deal with by facing it head on. “It’s a thorn I had to remove to keep writing about love,” she explains in a press release accompanying the first single off her upcoming debut album Nuevos Aires.
The pain of addressing whatever tortured episode the vocalist passed through sure seems to have been worth it, though. This is Mariana de Miguel at her smokiest. Electric pianos give the sense of delicate acceptance, even while Nan’s voice refuses to let go of hints of a certain fire, implying the love triangles she says may not be so safely tucked away into memory’s vault. This is precisely where Girl Ultra thrives, relaxed chords somehow comprising a slight veneer for anger, lust, and sadness. Think of the other R&B stars who manage similar feats – Sade, Frank Ocean, or “That’s The Way Love Goes” Janet Jackson.
De Miguel is fast becoming known for her fashion-forward Mexico City aesthetics, and true to form, the video is a stunner. In a face made up by CDMX nail tech and makeup artist Karla Donato, appropriately dramatic red ball gown and tricep-high gloves, Girl Ultra lies amid a mass of cables that connect to monitors playing out her tortured imaginings of what went on in her bed — the bed they share! — last night when she wasn’t around. De Miguel wrote the script herself for the clip, which was directed by Francisco Outón.
It’s all certainly enough to make you eager to see what Girl Ultra has up her gloves for Nuevos Aires — with any luck, the new material will be the push she needs to work her glamorous slow burns into the consciousness of international audiences.
Watch the video below, and catch her on tour in the U.S. with CLUBZ at one of these dates.