NY (Top40 Charts) - Since her 1999 debut, Mexican-American singer
Lila Downs has been steadily winning over audiences in both countries with two arresting albums -- 1999's La Sandunga and 2000's
Tree of Life - aggressive touring, and the kind of "must-see" word-of-mouth of which every artist dreams. On Border/La Linea, she returns with a fierce and challenging masterpiece that may just catapult her from critical darling to "next big thing."
Border/La Linea finds Downs taking on the excesses, inequalities, and rampant injustices of life on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Singing in Spanish, English, and Mixtec (her mother is Mixtec - a Native American people from the Mexican state of Oaxaca), she sings of NAFTA and the maquiladoras, of "coyotes" and deportees, of armadillos (really), and the sometimes redemptive, sometimes destructive power of love. Though her lyrics are anything but subtle, Downs is a consummate performer, and knows how to turn her songs into powerful, almost cinematic tableaux -- making her voice husky at times, strident at others, and even sarcastic when the song calls for it. In doing so, she elevates simple protest music into the realm of the mythic - dressed like Frieda Kahlo in a traditional Mixtec huipil, she seems to conjure the Socialist-Realist murals of Diego Rivera right off the walls into vibrant, violent life.
Moreover, her 7-piece backing band is a multinational crew that can draw on a wide background of Latin and Anglo styles - mixing guiros with electric bass, saxophones with Mexican harps, rancheras and cumbias with jazz and country - to pull out just the right musical quote for maximum impact. On "Sale Sobrando," Downs breaks into a perfectly timed, mock version of "Cielito Lindo," and the album's standout moment comes when Downs performs a pointed medley of Woody Guthrie's classics "Pastures of Plenty" and "This Land Is Your Land" - with her own original composition "Land" positioned at the end to underscore the new bitter reality behind Guthrie's egalitarian promise.
Be prepared, because this album will move you. There are moments on Border/La Linea that will fill you with sadness - deep, existential sadness -- and others that will fill you with choking rage or, possibly, guilty shame. Don't worry, though - that's only the feeling of your conscience being goaded by real art. Kinda refreshing, isn't it?
