Absorbing influences from the natural world and working with collaborators like Lido Pimienta, the Colombian group pushes its habitual electro-tropicalia sound into new terrain.
When Bomba Estéreo began recording their sixth album in January 2020, Colombians were in the midst of violent protests sparked by strikes against political corruption and dissatisfaction with President Iván Duque Márquez’s government. The anger from students and indigenous activists alike had been simmering for a while: “What matters to us, more than the virus or anything else, is the future of Colombia,” Maria Alejandra Vega, a university student in Bogotá, told a reporter. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, in a small beach town, Bomba Estéreo were also working to reshape their future. Flying in a tight-knit group of collaborators, including Colombian-Canadian singer-songwriter Lido Pimienta, Bomba Estéreo sought refuge in the natural world and created Deja, a concept album foregrounding the environment as a means by which we can heal ourselves politically, socially, and spiritually.
The resulting work is the band’s most earnest to date. When Deja invites us to the dancefloor, Bomba Estéreo ask that we proceed with a conscience. In 2020, Bomba Estereo’s founder Simón Mejía starred in Sonic Forest, a documentary in defense of coastal Colombia’s Afro-Colombian and Indigenous populations. Mejía also released a solo album, Mirla, under the moniker Monte, which inserted nature recordings within instrumental tracks. As Bomba Estéreo absorbed themselves in the land around them, Deja took shape, pushing the group’s habitual electro-tropicalia into different terrain. Drawing influences from marimba, Colombian folk, champeta, and Afrobeats, their sound isn’t necessarily new, but it’s bigger than ever. The most obvious example is “Conexión Total,” a collaboration with Nigerian star Yemi Alade. As Liliana Saumet and Alade riff back and forth about the joys of being fully present, they are carried by Efraín Cuadrado’s gaita (also known as a kuisi), which adds a dazzlingly bright sound to the synths and club-ready rhythm.
Although environmentalism has long played a role in Bomba Estéreo’s music, they’ve never sounded more spiritually attuned, even if it isn’t always effective. Album opener “Agua” begins with a call for the four elements: “Agua/Tierra/Aire/Fuego,” Saumet sings, in a fashion reminiscent of bullerengue, an Afro-Colombian oral tradition. The refrain fits the album’s division into sections dedicated to water, earth, air, and fire, but it still comes off a little hokey. Similarly, the title track relies on ecotherapy-inspired positive affirmations in the attempt to make grand statements about human disconnection, but the uninspiring EDM melody does nothing to lift the lyrics off the ground.
The second half of Deja is more convincingly aligned with their vision. “Tamborero” is a rhapsodic celebration of Colombia’s percussive prowess. On “Tierra,” Saumet sings elegiacally of the earth’s imminent demise; the marimba melody is so sweet, you almost forget how devastating it all is. And on album closer “Mamo Manuel Nieves (Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria),” they pass the mic to an indigenous shaman of the Kogi community. Saumet and Mejía had just finished an old ritual known as a pagamento, or “payment” to the land, when they invited Nieves into the studio to record a message for the world. The largely spoken-word track is a fresh and timely addition to an album of global bangers; it sits in a space similar to Mejía’s solo work, drawing upon samples of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta’s ferocious winds and birds. For a band that consistently invokes tropical indigenous aesthetics, it’s important to see them centering local collaborators’ voices.
Activism and collective healing are at the heart of Deja, and even if Bomba Estéreo’s fusion of lithe beats and weighty themes doesn’t always work, Saumet is a compelling presence throughout. As she opens “Ahora,” surrounded by the sounds of the rainforest, she offers a mantra for anyone struggling: “I am here. I am sitting in the right place, at the right moment, at the right time. Let your heart open.” It’s a simple meditation on seeking balance, and the song that follows, a lilting fusion of synths and guitar set to a cumbia rhythm, drives the point home: They’ve found answers in the world around them.
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