SUSANA BACA Espíritu Vivo (Luaka Bop) Rating: NNNN Rating: NNNN
Recorded in Manhattan on September 12, 2001, Susana Baca’s Espritu Vivo has a palpable sense of loss and restraint but also a real feeling of defiant celebration. There’s always been a strange intensity lurking within Baca’s Afro-Peruvian folk tunes, but the situation around her and the decision to record in front of a silent audience give this set an immediacy that her past recordings never fully captured. The addition of John Medeski on organ and Marc Ribot on rubbery guitar pushes covers of Afro Blue and Caetano Veloso’s 13 De Mayo into thrilling new territory, while Baca’s ghostly version of Björk’s Anchor Song, sung in Spanish, turns out to be more haunting than the original.
