Chilean pop diva Javiera Mena has continuously provided shimmering dance floor bangers—from embracing vintage disco sounds on her classic album Mena to running the gamut of electropop bombast on Otra Era and Espejo. However, while every album comes complete with a couple of her famously cinematic ballads, those songs are seldom given the promotional spotlight many fans believe they truly deserve. That is all changing with Mena’s newest single, “Dos,” a sweeping orchestral torch song all about standing unapologetically at the center of a tumultuous love triangle.
“Dos” unfolds as a slow burning confessional where Mena admits to herself, and her paramours, that the flames of two different loves burn in her heart, fighting a loosing battle to reach some sort of polyamorous agreement. Sparse piano chords steadily give way to synths, drum kicks and lush orchestral strings, escalating the drama in tandem with Mena’s sensual ruminations about stolen glances and colliding bodies. The music video for “Dos” similarly contrasts minimalism and melodrama, shot in a Spanish warehouse where scenes of a sullen Mena sitting at a grand piano cut to her breathlessly pleading her case to the lovers slipping through her fingers.
Fans first got a taste of “Dos” last Friday when Mena gave a buzzy digital performance inside popular virtual reality simulation Avakin Life, making her the first Latin American artist to ever perform on the platform.
“Dos” is the third single off Javiera Mena’s forthcoming EP. Slated for Spring, the EP will include previous releases “Flashback” and “Corazón Astral,” hinting at darker, moodier sounds and themes to come. The indie pop tearjerker was co-produced by Chilean studio whiz Pablo Stipicic and written alongside Mexican singer-songwriter and producer Marian Ruzzi; a modern kindred spirit to Laura León’s iconic “Dos Mujeres, Un Camino.”