No es fácil hablar de Lulacruza.  El dúo compuesto por la colombiana Alejandra Ortiz y el argentino Luis Maurette propone una música extraña que por momentos remite más a paisajes sonoros que a canciones.  Es cierto que Lulacruza puede asociarse al puñado de artistas que mezclan electrónica con música latinoamericana (Tonolec, Tremor, Doña María, etc, etc,) pero también es verdad que son los más extremos dentro de esa escena.
Ambient precolombino, electrónica que se funde con la naturaleza: extraño viaje el que propone este dúo en su segundo disco. Antes hablábamos de paisajes sonoros y es esto exactamente lo que uno cree estar atravesando al escuchar tracks como “Cenote” o “Ackon Cahuak “
Pero también hay canciones; piezas extrañas, rodeadas de climas enrarecidos por el sonido de insectos y quien sabe que otras alimañas. Allí están “Caracoles” (un trip en cámara lenta por un jardín nocturno) o “Soloina”. Este último track ostenta un frenético desarrollo rítmico, el mismo  tratamiento tribal de las percusiones que envuelve al oyente en “Jaguares” y que volverá en “Everlasting” demostrando el importante aporte deL multiinstrumentista estadounidense  MJ Greenmountain en el disco.
“Soloina”  es un cd con una propuesta clara que no se permite concesiones. Un viaje, bastante oscuro, por un universo musical tan personal como inquietante.
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Few bands sound like Lulacruza. Composed of Luis Maurette from Argentina and Alejandra Ortiz from Colombia, the now-California-based duo uses electronic production methods to create a pan-global fusion that weaves female vocals, South American instruments, found sound objects, and field recordings into exotic landscapes. On Soloina, a collaboration with vocalist and multi-instrumentalist MJ Greenmountain, the sound explorers entwine a mini-orchestra of indigenous percussion instruments (kalimba, Bombo legüero, Yoruba talking drum, caxixis, qaraqebs) charango, cuatro, and chanted incantations into oft-mysterious ritual pieces that feel like they could summon long-dead spirits.

As rich in colour and spirit as its colour illustration, Soloina originated as improvisations recorded in Lulacruza's Oakland home which were then shaped into the forty-minute, nine-song collection. Ortiz's bright voice dances freely over the percussive-heavy swing of “Soloina” while the less dense “Cenote” allows the song's hypnotic vocal chants to have maximum impact. “Unu Tusuna,” “Everlasting,” and “Ackon Cahuak” bring the electronic dimension to the forefront with ever-changing and sometimes hazy masses of airy vocal musings and tropical sounds. The album is “world music” in the truest sense, due perhaps in part to the involvement of Greenmountain who has spent the past fifteen years studying music from around the globe and has participated in sacred ceremonies with tribes from India, Indonesia, Australia, Africa, and the Americas. Labels such as “electronic tropicalia” or “jungle electronica” understandably spring to mind when Soloina plays.
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Lulacruza’s Alejandra Ortiz and Luis Maurette are from Columbia and Argentina respectively, and met at the Berklee School of Music in Boston in 2004…in 2006 they released their debut album Do Pretty independently in Argentina, and in the meantime the duo has resettled in Oakland, California…for this, their second album they’ve recruited the assistance of M.J. Greenmountain, a veteran of pan-ethnic tribal and trance-based musics…Soloina is a mesmerizing series of hypnotic vignettes, using folk instruments from South America, Africa, and Asia, with an emphasis on wet, rubbery percussion…though the source instruments are acoustic, they’re subjected to electronic looping, and drenched alternately with echo, delay, and reverb, creating ringing rounds of blissed-out disorientation…Ortiz lends her sweet alto voice to most of the album’s tracks, singing in Spanish or wordlessly, lifting the tunes further into a hazy reverie…field recordings of jungle fauna and of an unnamed tribal ceremony complete the blend, adding up to an dense aura of contemplation and mystery…
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I am listening to Soloina right now, its really making miss Cameroon right now. Its like the tracks are beyond simple explanation, one can only use their soul to describe it which takes a lifetime so that’s a challenge in itself. All I can say is wow.
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