Mariana “Nan” de Miguel, aka Girl Ultra, is ever inspired by the haunts of her past. Her latest EP, Blush, is enveloped with influences from grunge, punk, sultry house, and cosmic dance beats, which she uses to explore themes of self-image and sexuality while encompassing her signature brand of nostalgic, melancholic, horny club music. Since the release of her acclaimed 2022 album El Sur, de Miguel picked up the task of teaching herself to play the guitar, in which lies the heart and soul of the entire EP. “This project is very special because it allowed me to lose the fear of experimenting with genre-bending. I was able to be more playful with it,” she tells Remezcla. “Since El Sur, I became obsessed with the way club music and garage music and rock textures come together. So for me, this is the daughter of El Sur that is finally able to explore those motifs more in-depth.”
The Mexico City native has lived many lives — from her high school days in a rock cover band to her early 20s when she coined her super heroine-esque stage name and worked as an underground DJ where she found herself spiritually connecting with the brooding energy she encountered in the city’s nightlife. The songstress deviated from her roots and kicked off her singing career as an early pioneer of Mexico’s R&B scene. Today, that same romanticism for love, the past, and angst helped conjure a sonically sumptuous compilation of abstract musings full of yearning and sensuality.
While El Sur was a project comprised of sharp and sultry house-heavy dance tracks, Blush is more of a blank canvas that offered the singer breathing room to freestyle with the grit and despondent moods that are found in rock melodies and were pulled from her own emotional inner world. To execute the euphony of melodies that de Miguel has mentally collected throughout her life, she enlisted producers Sam Katz and Kiddzie.
“I’m an obsessive person and controlling bitch,” she says while laughing. “But I wanted to practice the act of letting go. Sam Katz is a very sleek producer and I felt like I was lacking a little bit of dirt. So I invited my friend Keith C. back to work on this EP… We just know the right textures and grit that we wanted [for this project].”
While the EP contains a plethora of thoughtful creative direction and sensuous house beats perfectly created for crying on the dance floor, each single sounds completely individual, creating an effect of jumping from one story to the next. Blush’s opening track, “blu,” begins with the sound of static emitted by an old record, the deep echoes of a grungy guitar and poetic lyrics that touch on lost love and feeling horny for the one that got away. De Miguel shares, “With this album, I took the liberty of exploring what beauty means to me and my sexuality. But it’s also somber because I was between a lot of situations where I was both very horny and very sad. So I wanted to reflect the state of the modern woman in that she can be depressed, still get a lot done, and still fuck around.”
De Miguel is adept at the art of abstract and illustrative storytelling. The title track “blush” is written and delivered like a deconstructed haiku, steeped in wistful metaphor layered with sultry house synths and an uptempo tom beat that adds atmospheric depth. At its halfway point, the singer shows off her affinity for strings as the vibratos of a traditional Japanese Koto paired with twinkling astral synths transports the listener into another realm. Soon after, the vibe switches up entirely. Tapping into cultural nostalgia and iconography from the ‘90s and pairing it with futuristic dance rhythms. “5to elemento” and “bruce willisss” are named after the iconic actor and the cult classic film of the same name, which happens to be the singer’s favorite movie. The former is a broody emo track that tugs and pulls between sweet memories of the past and the emptiness of the present. The latter is a frenetic dance anthem that reflects the excitement and whiplash that comes with a fast-burning love affair.
[While writing Blush,] I was between a lot of situations where I was both very horny and very sad. So I wanted to reflect the state of the modern woman in that she can be depressed, still get a lot done, and still fuck around.
Through the creation of Blush, de Miguel was also able to explore themes around her self-esteem and its relation to conventional beauty standards and beauty products. “When I was younger, I felt like I had to adapt to my clothes, my body, my features. And the past three or four years, I learned that it’s the other way around. I like my body, I like how I look, and I want to be selfish with the aesthetics like makeup and fashion and have it all adapt to me instead,” she says. “I like to play with makeup that’s liveable and that tells a story the way a smudged eyeliner does.”
Blush is a playful rendition of generational and global influences that transcend language and retain the ability to connect with listeners from all walks of life. It encapsulates universal themes of body image, sexuality, melancholy, and all of the moods in between, making it relatable. However, it’s her ability to pull from the most obscure and deep-cut influences that make her work sound distinctive.
Blush is out now.
