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dalsi - Cantigas de amor (2023)

Artist: dalsi

Author: Sarah

Date: 01/10/2024

Listen: Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify

Not only was this my album of the year in 2023, but it also singlehandedly restored my faith in indiepop, and was the direct inspiration for forming this site! So when I decided there was going to be a reviews section, it was an easy call to decide what my first review would be for. This one comes with the highest recommendations I can possibly bestow.

Until fairly recently, my indiepop knowledge was limited, for the most part, to bands from Anglophone countries. There were some exceptions, of course, but they were all the big canonized names like Flipper's Guitar or Family. My knowledge of the present day was even more limited, just the few Bay Area bands that happened to be signed to Slumberland, and I didn't care for any of them very much. Luckily, some friends with better knowledge than I possessed were able to point me to several bands, one of which was dalsi. With their jangly guitars and tinny drum machine, they were exactly what I needed to hear at the time.

I think one of my favorite things about Cantigas de amor is how unambitious it sounds. That sounds like a backhanded compliment at best, but I swear I mean it entirely as a positive thing! Compared to other tontipop artists I've heard about from friends, they've got a lot smaller of a sound. Someone like Axolotes Mexicanos, for example, has these big hooks that have them poised for indiepop stardom (to whatever extent such a thing still exists), but dalsi just keeps ticking along like that drum machine of theirs. Cantigas de amor sounds like an album that was made for the sole pleasure of making music, without any real regard for the thoughts of whoever might happen by to listen. Compare that to the supposed indiepop renaissance going on in San Francisco: I always come away from those bands thinking that they're really trying to impress me with how much they can sound like Sarah Records. On occasion that type of approach can result in a good song or two, but it just doesn't have the right spirit for me.

I have, of course, considered the possibility that dalsi is doing that same thing, just they're playing to a canon that I'm not familiar with. Perhaps it's true; if it is, then I'll continue to have nothing but love for dalsi's role in introducing me to it.