Chilean psych pop duo Nueva Costa, are back with a new full length album Dilema released on July 23rd on BYM Records. For an act that allows so many influences to enter the creative process – they cite house, disco, balearic and French library music as inspirations, among others – their style rides the fine line between cliché and groundbreaking.
The point, say Ángelo Santa Cruz and Daniel Bande, is to explore the nuances that derive from exploiting what these genres connote. In their hardware savvy approach to writing music, they enlist the help of these commonly used musical influences, which are often stigmatized as shallow. Nueva Costa traces a line around them to create thoughtful pop music. It’s almost as if they challenge themselves to bait heady listeners into enjoying themselves, or to pull party kids into introspection.
The album’s first track “Telenovelas,” is a downtempo jam that’s full of crystalline synth arpeggios and pulsating bass lines. The music evokes early Air records, or the heavy dub of Peaking Lights. If it weren’t for the fact that Nueva Costa has a vocal track delivering lines like “No importan las penas, cuando hay telenovelas” we could easily get sucked into this utopian chill vibe. What works about about Dilema, is that you can enjoy it at face value – as a beautifully arranged electronica album where each element has a purpose – but you can also dig deeper into the meaning behind each song and get your “concept album” fix. If given the chance, it could bring together fans from all walks of life.