Black Pumas’ Adrian Quesada Gives a Track-by-Track Rundown of His New Album, ‘Boleros Psicodélicos’

variety.com:

Thania Garcia For Adrian Quesada, co-founder of the psychedelic soul duo Black Pumas, all it took was the stillness of the pandemic to finally create the project that had existed only in his head for the last 10-plus years — his latest release, “Boleros Psicodélicos.”The 12-track album, out today via ATO Records, is infused with the multi-instrumentalist’s admiration for the golden era of romantic bolero music that continues to transcend cultural borders today.

Bolero ballads first manifested throughout Latin America in the late ’60s and early ’70s, with elements of instrumental experimentation that would go on to influence future generations like electric guitars with an influx of added reverb, the electric organ, harpsichord strings and the mellotron.

In “Boleros Psicodélicos,” Quesada references not just his own familial roots but also emphasizes those of his featured artists — sometimes taking them out of their comfort zone and vice versa.

From the elegant vocals of former Calle 13 member iLe on “Mentiras Con Cariño,” to the re-imagined climactic cover of Jeanette’s 1981 cult classic “El Muchacho De Los Ojos Tristes,” the album pays homage to tradition while also refashioning it with a psychedelic twist.Quesada “wasn’t sure people were going to like” his idea to create an original tribute album because he “had shown people in the past and they had written it off as too melodramatic.” But that never stopped the prolific musician in his quest to modernize the genre himself. “I would go to the Ma and Pa Mexican stores and buy CDs and some of them were terrible,” Quesada says. “But, I would find one or two songs I enjoyed and over time, I had collected enough for a pretty unique playlist.”The “collection” process was.