Bridging Paris and Medellín, French-Colombian bassist and singer Ëda Diaz’s new album Suave Bruta is woven with haute-couture pop and a diverse mix of Latin American rhythms, with Ëda Diaz’s upright double bass, the insistent pulse.
On her debut album Suave Bruta, across eleven tracks blending traditional Latin American and Afro Colombian rhythms with electronic experimentation, Ëda Diaz manages to reconcile different parts of her identity, two rich and complementary aspects that she has long viewed as opposites. Wonky Colombian salsa, electrified currulao and an eccentric Colombian-made dembow all sparkle with real-world samples from the buzz of a hairdressing salon to birdsong, and samples cut from classic Latin American tunes, all underpinned by the production of Anthony Winzenrieth evoking Björk, James Blake or Juana Molina.
French on her mother's side and Colombian on her father's, Ëda Diaz learned from an early age to juggle languages, cultures, rhythms and unique ways of making music on her many trips back and forth between Paris and Medellín. Ëda Diaz dedicated over ten years to classical piano performance at the Conservatoire de Boulogne Billancourt. But every summer, amid the sound of the tiple guitar and the clinking of aguardiente glasses in the courtyard of the family home in Medellín, her grandmother introduced her to the fiery tangos of Carlos Gardel, the romanticism of boleros, the joyfulness of bambucos and an entire repertoire of popular songs from the great traditions of South American music. Ever since, Ëda Diaz has been obsessed with bridging these two continents together.
But how? Where would she start from? And how do you do that without losing your ‘self’? Well Ëda Diaz never truly thought of herself as a concert performer nor a feverish folk music enthusiast, so of course she turned to psychedelic rock. By stepping aside, ridding herself of potential association, she freed herself from academic hang-ups and wrote her first lyrics, unleashing her voice. The true epiphany finally came in the form of a double bass, testament to Ëda Diaz’s ‘padre’ who had raised her on the finest tumbaos in Afro-Cuban music. Forever on repeat at Eda Diaz’s family home were the Buena Vista Social Club and Omara Portuondo discs and like so many Colombian households, the songs of Joe Arroyo, the most charismatic of all Colombian salsa singers, were played loud. And it’s one of his classics, Suave Bruta, that lent its name to Ëda Diaz's debut offering.
“The double bass saved me” explains Ëda Diaz. ‘Without it I might not have devoted my life to music. I had been singing since I was little but I felt like I wasn't cut out for it. I feel like when I discovered the double bass at 24, I also discovered the joy of playing an instrument and blending with it with my vocals. I never had this feeling with the piano. And it’s a foundation instrument in Latin styles of bolero, danzon, salsa, the rhythms that accompany me every day.”
Vallenato, bullerengue, danzón, Ecuadorian vals, currulao and bolero all serve as the starting point for Ëda Diaz and producer Anthony Winzenrieth, who she has worked with since her first EP and release in 2017. Building from Ëda Diaz's double bass (often modified in production with added distortions, pitch and speed effects), the duo weave together live instrumentation with samples from the real world, sounds of birds, flies, bats, owls, hairdressing salons, documentary archives along with samples from tracks close to the singer’s heart.
Tiemblas features an accordion sample from the vallenato classic La Casa en el Aire by composer Rafael Escalona, a track Ëda Diaz has covered twice before, including a French version in 2022 that went viral in Colombia. The single tells the story of a journey to the Amazon, where the singer befriends a local guide with a wooden leg.
Featuring a sample from Colombian legend Lucho Bermudez’s Fiesta de Negritos, Sábana y Banano bounces over tight beats and bass rumbles, while taking on the more trivial but universal subject of trying to get out of bed on a rainy day. The madcap salsa rhythms of Al Pelo sounds like a meeting of Meridian Brothers and Coco Roise, while album opener Nenita is a forward thinking take on bullerengue, a traditional musical genre and dance from the Caribbean Region of Colombia.
Also inspired by the works of Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda and Gabriel García Márquez, she pays tribute to the poetic traditions of South America in her lyrics, in particular to its classical structures - the famous decimas. Breathing in all these influences to make something uniquely hers, Suave Bruta bears witness to Ëda Diaz's journey, one that she invited the listener on, as she sings about love, death, kinship and the torments of the modern world.