Court the Storm, the second full-length release from Portland, Oregon’s Y La Bamba, punches all the right buttons. It’s rhythmically, melodically and lyrically rich. Its songs, whether in English or Spanish, are immediately entertaining in all of those ways, and also offer intriguing depth that rewards the patient and demanding listener.
Led by chief songwriter and singer Luz Elena Mendoza, with harmonies from guitarist Paul Cameron, Y La Bamba (named for Mendoza’s cat Bamba) has made an adventurous and exciting album sure to land on many Top 10 lists for 2012.
Mendoza’s vocals casually cover the spectrum from soaringly operatic (“Bendito”) to lilting, gentle folk (“Moral Panic,” “Houghson Boys”). The album kicks off with the former in “Squawk,” with lyrics in English, a sprightly Mexican-style six-beat rhythm with some fancy acoustic guitar picking over layers of rhythm and jangle of what sounds like a tres or at least a tenor guitar. “Bendito” is sung in Spanish with louche, indie-rock harmonies, to a cumbia-like four-beat rhythm emphasized by a rhythmically plucked guitar, pumping accordion and lots of percussion. It has an anthemic waltz-time middle section whose palette borrows liberally from The Decemberists, unsurprisingly. (Their first studio album Lupon was produced gratis by that band’s Chris Funk; this one by Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin.)
Then it’s into folk mode for the next two tracks. “Moral Panic” alternates between intense and languid moods, with folky fingerpicked guitar, haunting accordion and lush orchestration. “Houghson Boys” could have come from a Greenwich Village folk scene album, with its sturdily fingerpicked acoustic guitar accompaniment of Mendoza’s and Cameron’s classic harmony duet vocals – think an updated Ian and Sylvia Tyson or Richard and Mimi Fariña. And there are wonderful multi-part harmonies on the song’s repeated chorus of “your heart, your heart, your heart.”
Speaking of multi-part harmonies, there are some spine-chillingly lovely moments on the final track, the titular “Court The Storm.” Neko Case, with whom Y La Bamba toured twice in the past year, lends her crystalline, soaring voice to make a trio from the usual Mendoza-Cameron duo on this pensive, bittersweet yet hope-inspiring song. In fact, the song both lyrically and sonically draws a lot on Case’s sound, particularly on her two most recent albums. Here are some of the lyrics of the first verse, as near as I can make them out:
Her lover tells her be courageous and leave his eyes to wander / But baby don’t leave me with a heartbreak. / I’ve heard that once we find a way to court the storm we find ourselves believing the greatest love story ever told.
Probably my favorite song on the record at this point is the lovely and somewhat playful “Como Ratones.” After a lilting, flamenco-like introduction, it breaks into a shambling circus-bear waltz tune with lots of polyrythmic percussion, Mendoza’s vocals that alternately soar and sink to a guttural whisper, and creative instrumentation that includes what sounds like a toy piano.
But I’m sure that, as with all the best albums, I will have many rotating “favorites” as I continue to explore the glories of Court the Storm. I encourage you to explore it, too. You can do that on their website at Tender Loving Empire, the Portland label/store. You can buy it or listen to all of the album’s tracks via Soundcloud at that site, or the majestic title track here:
(Tender Loving Empire, 2012)
