top of page
Search

Global Music Column – May

Jun 13, 2025
1 min read

Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Five years since her Grammy-nominated breakthrough record Miss Colombia, singer and producer Lido Pimienta has taken a radical shift in direction. On Miss Colombia, Pimienta combined sprightly electro pop with cumbia rhythms and soaring vocals to critique racism and misogyny – now, her fourth album La Belleza (The Beauty) is a nine-track orchestral suite touching on everything from Gregorian chant to strings-laden love songs and dembow rhythms.


Inspired by Catholic requiem mass music and the luscious harpsichord folk of Czech composer Luboš Fiser’s score to 1970 film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett began writing and arranging for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra during the Covid lockdowns. The result is a moving work of remarkable depth.


Read the review in the Guardian.


[This piece was published on 09/05/25]

Recent Posts

See All
Global Music Column – August

Gaia Wilmer Large Ensemble – Parabólico Over the past three years, Brazilian saxophonist and composer Gaia Wilmer has reimagined the catalogues of her country’s virtuosos so radically that it’s become

 
 
 
The life and death of dubstep

One of my earliest and most formative clubbing experiences was spent in a church basement in Brixton around 2010. Age 16 and blinded by dry ice, it wasn’t the thrill of gaining entry to a club underag

 
 
 
Hit Machine review

On paper, writer Jonathan Caren’s Hit Machine has all the makings of a chart-topping smash. Featuring the London stage debuts of Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) and Noah Galvin (Dear Evan Hansen),

 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page