It’s spooky season, and while you prepare an elaborate Halloween costume, give a listen to the haunting melodies of Nancy Sanchez. The LA-via-Mexico singer/songwriter is known for her rich blend of musical styles, culminating in a genre which she has coined Mexican-American art pop. Her latest single is more a dirge compared to her notable high tempo tracks, and it rewrites folk tales from a new perspective. Watch the video for “La Maldita Bruja” below.
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Halloween is a holiday meant to frighten in the States, but in Mexico, Dia de los Muertos is a sorrowful yet optimistic occasion. Images of the Black Death dance with traditional Mexican symbols and garb in Nancy Sanchez’s latest single, which she began writing at 18 and finished when the pandemic gave it new meaning. The music video tells the story of “La Maldita Bruja” in two acts: first she begins with a classical guitar on the beach before she dons a pointed physician’s mask and approaches an altar. The onset of coronavirus gave us more to fear than ghost stories but Sanchez is hopeful. The ones we lost are always with us, helping us work toward a brighter future.
“La Maldita Bruja” follows Say Something, a powerful three-track EP that Sanchez wrote and released during the height of unrest last summer and fall. The positivity in her latest single does not negate the importance of her messages on Say Something which demand action for civil rights and specifically, justice for the children who were held in cages at the border. (By the way, those poor conditions for migrant children still persist.) We must never lose sight of the bigger picture—nor lose hope.
by: Zoë Elaine
Follow Nancy Sanchez on Instagram and Twitter. Find more of her back catalog on Bandcamp.
