Susana Baca
Eco de Sombras (Luaka Bop)
On this, her second solo album, Susana Baca pulls back a bit from her coastal Peruvian roots and joins up with slick Manhattanite Mark Ribot (of Cubanos Postizos) and the gruff and rough of Tom Waits. But for a looser and occasionally more darkly humorous streak, though, it would be hard to tell they’re there. What’s front and center is what is most important about Baca: that amazing voice, with all its cool melancholia, all its strange wisdom. Unlike the Brazilian Virginia Rodrigues or Cape Verde’s Cesaria Evora, Baca’s instrument is not so much celestial as an earthly delight. There’s a weight to her timbre, a sense of experience really lived in this lifetime, and fully transformed. “Eco de Sombras,” like her previous self-titled release, features hypnotizing Afro-Peruvian rhythms punctuated by the eerie cajon, sparse instrumentations and haunting melodies. Of particular note are the mysterious “De los Amores” and the irrepressibly lively “Valentin,” which belies the dangerous content of its lyrics.