Brooklyn-based Boricua Lola Pistola has a natural penchant for documenting her life, from tour diaries to zines full of photos she captured as a member of AJ Dávila y Terror Amor, as well as poetry and prose. Now she unveils another installment in her continuous chronicling: Everyday/Routine EP, a two-track effort released via hometown label Discos Diáspora premiering today on Remezcla.
Neither cut is as angsty as “Tú Pensabas,” last year’s solo debut produced by AJ Dávila and bearing his signature jangly, deliberately unruly pop aesthetic. These new tracks are nothing like that: This time around, Lola Pistola is introspective, contemplative. Madness resulting from too much monotony, too intense melancholy, is the centerpiece here, both in lyrics and in sound.
On “Everyday,” produced by Puerto Rican experimental pop artist Héctor “StoneTape” Hernández (half of the duo Carnales with AJ Dávila), Lola Pistola is stuck in a cycle, feeling lost, disappointed, and crying. There’s a little bite in the lines. “Everyday/Feels like the/Fucking same,” but even a (deceptively) optimistic pace and somewhat cheery riffs can’t take the track out of its decidedly dismal headspace. Things only get sadder from there; “Routine” recalls a despondent vibe akin to a roughed-up take on Maria Taylor’s anxiety-riddled “Xanax.”
Maybe Lola Pistola was missing the hectic excitement of tour life when she penned these tracks, or maybe this forlorn rumination has been in her all along. Whatever the reason, she’s crafted something more universally resonant from her sadness. This addition to the catalog of her personal life could be an entry in anyone else’s, and we’re grateful for it.