Ahead of the release of his new album, Agüita (out this Friday on Jagjaguwar in association with Stones Throw), Gabriel Garzón-Montano is pleased to share Agüita’s final pre-release single, “Muñeca.” Following previous singles, “Bloom,” “Agüita,” and “Someone” – the latter praised by The New York Times as a “deliberately sluggish beat punctuated by sticky, squishy clavinet notes, while the vocal line makes jazzy leaps that sound increasingly distraught” – “Muñeca” further demonstrates Garzón-Montano’s diverse range, delving into club-banger territory, and samples legendary reggae duo Sly & Robbie. The title itself means “doll” in Spanish, which is, according to Garzón-Montano, a“tacky but sweet way” of addressing a woman in Latin America.
“The hook references the great Brazilian futbolista Pele, equating my game to his,” says Garzón-Montano. “My parallel to the American tradition of referencing Jordan in rap songs. The reference production and mix for this song was J Balvin’s ‘Reggaeton’ where he pays homage to the genre’s greats Tego Calderon and Daddy Yankee. Arun [the album’s engineer] and I really went in matching frequencies and doing research on plugins used and compression techniques for low end.”
As previewed on Agüita’s title track, Garzón-Montano utilizes “Muñeca” to further explore the idea of the “Urbano hitmaker,” one of three characters he embodies throughout the album’s 50-minute runtime. Celebrating the masculine while subverting traditional hip-hop and Latino machismo energy, the Urbano hitmaker is Latinx and contemporary. Critical yet fun loving, egocentric and decidedly ‘un papi’. It’s modern trap, rap, reggaeton, and R&B recorded digitally and written and produced by Gabriel alone.
Listen To Gabriel Garzón-Montano’s “Muñeca”
Named by the likes of Pitchfork and Uproxx as one of the most anticipated albums this fall, Agüita is an exploration by Garzón-Montano of three characters: the aforementioned Urbano hitmaker, the debonair leading man, and the wistful impressionist. What unfolds is a prismatic self-portrait, personal and universal all at once, a sequence of impossibly diverse offerings ranging from trap anthems to string-drenched art pop ballads.
Listen to “Bloom”Pre-order Agüita
“Gabriel Garzón-Montano is nothing if not versatile.” — Pitchfork (Most Anticipated Albums of Fall 2020)
“…Garzón-Montano seems to be on a mission to prove that he cannot be restrained to a style, a language, a rhythm or a concept. His flexibility requires attention.” — TIME, on “Agüita” (The Best New Songs of July 2020)
“Splashes of baile funk accentuate the French Colombian’s avant-garde take on reggaeton.” — Rolling Stone, on “Agüita” (RS Latin Music Picks)
“The title track is a perfect example of him pushing the boundaries of his art.” — NPR Music, on “Agüita” (NPR Music’s No. 1 Albums And Songs Of July)
“[‘Agüita’] sees the auteur flourishing comfortably in cross-cultural experimentations that he calls a ‘tasting menu’ of his arsenal.” — Uproxx
