Empress Of - Tristeza

Following the dizzied swirls of Hat Trick, here’s another new one from Empress Of’s ‘Systems’ EP, which was released in the UK by Double Denim this week. Tristeza begins with rhythmic, gasps of breath before moving into soaring vocals which skip over bounce-y, unobtrusive keyboards – eventually sinking back to those a capella sections to teasing effect. There’s not much more to it than that – but there hardly needs to be – with Lorely Rodriguez’s lush phrasings, one of two tracks sung in her native Spanish on the EP, making it comfortably among the finest work we’ve heard from her since those intriguing colourminutes last Autumn.

Double Denim/Terrible Records released the ‘System’ EP on the 2nd April.