Natalia Lafourcade's "Azul"
I’ve been waiting for Natalia Lafourcade to emerge from the Canadian wilderness and release her highly anticipated record, Hu Hu Hu. The first single and video from this record is “Azul,” a pretty 6-minute epic with soaring orchestrations and an effervescent sensibility very similar to last year’s instrumental EP, Las 4 Estaciones Del Amor. On “Azul,” Lafourcade wonders openly of being eaten up by time or having her voice stolen by the wind. She admits her fear of nudity and having voyeurs look way, or of being swept away by darknes; of losing her fingers and losing her friends. There is a sense of naivete in her lyrics and in the usage of the xylophone and trumpets as the main instruments, but it’s during the bridge that we understand Lafourcade’s puerile fears. “Azul” isn’t a song about love, but one that longs for independence, that independence could be from the restraints of unrequited love, of troubled friendships, of damaging family dynamics. Any which way you read it, not many musicians sing about such topics so wonderfully. That’s why it’s our FIRST song of the day and might as well be our song of the year.
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