This album caught my attention after I’d gotten it on my phone but hadn’t listened to it consciously yet. Generally I listen to the bulk of my music on ‘shuffle’ & ‘all songs’ for a twofold reason:
1. I know that music often gets you when you are in a ‘vulnerable’ or susceptible state. aka. an emotional one. In my experience when I am in an already emotional state it doesn’t really matter what I hear as long as the general narrative of the story correlates with how I am feeling at that moment in time. i.e. When I’m sad; sad songs will automatically speak to me.
2. Putting my whole music library on shuffle then diversifies and maximizes all the possibilities in genre and style that I will relate to in this susceptible state.
However this still means a song has to catch my attention, it might be sad when I’m sad but if there is no catchy hook, no good chorus or off-killter rhythm then my attention will not be sparked and songs will softly ooze one into the next, like susurrant displacements of soundspan and attentionwaves.
This is exactly how Jackie Mendoza’s new album LuvHz jabbed and hit me with it’s poppy and pumping fifth track “Your Attention”. I was dreaming away when I heard a faint murmuring in my ears “Aaaaattentioooooooon”. The kick immediately forces you to oblige and listen to the dreamy arrangement that Ms. Mendoza has prepped for us. Even though she only serves us with a limited number of rounds (it’s a relatively short song and the alternating and pounding kick that we only get to hear twice, guides you through it with the capriciousness of an autumn shower). The sounds are quite short and broadly selected from so many different genres. It’s only at the end of the song that your realize that you were completely lost in the preceding moments.
Fast forward into the 5th track ‘Puppet Angels’ and you know where it’s at. More industrial and classic kick arrangements are combined with loud thundering and ominous synths and rhythmic and punchy vocals. All the while staying true to a dreamy, wistful and frisky combination of sounds.
Similar to contemporary female artists like Marie Davidson, Olivia Neutron-John and Kedr Livanskiy (I am so sorry for calling upon a female canon – it’s just the vocals), Mendoza is a young female artist that, in my opinion stands out because she is not afraid to cross-genres and soundscapes, even within songs and arrangements themselves. And she is similar in the fact that, well, she is young beautiful and daring :-). The arrangements she brings are closer to her latin roots and therefor closer to folk and indietronica.
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