Argentina’s spunkiest duo Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso have checked themselves into a wellness center for their latest album, “Free Spirits.”
Out Thursday, the LP pushes the limits of the duo’s experimentation, combining unpredictable blends of trap, rock and pop while still maintaining their raunchy sense of humor and musicianship. The 12-track project features collaborations with British musicians Sting and Fred Again, as well as California’s very own Anderson .Paak and Jack Black.
It’s been a busy year for the avant-garde pair, who won their first Grammy in February for their nine-track EP, “Papota.”
At the ceremony, they hinted at a rebrand for the upcoming album; both appearing on the red carpet wearing matching tan robes — a look far less flashy than the custom Versace outfits they wore at the Latin Grammys in November.
“We are trying to heal that velocity that we had in the past year. If you go so fast, you’re going to crash,” Paco Amoroso told Billboard in February. “We are healing ourselves now.”
Following their Tiny Desk performance in Oct. 2024 — which has reached over 27 million views to date — the Buenos Aires singers have etched an unpredictable, kooky path in the crazed music industry, often by criticizing it.
First, their 2025 EP “Papota” humorized their rapid ascent to stardom and poked fun at how artists must dilute their image to fit the mainstream.
Now through their LP “Free Spirits,” they continue to comment on the trope of the burned-out, exhausted artist who through a soul-stripping retreat can find renewal once again.
That purported healing is taking place at “Free Spirits Wellness Center,” a mock-up clinic led by Sting dedicated to advance physiological and cognitive expansion for people working under intense pressure.
In a music video released Wednesday, Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso checked themselves in after taking home five gramophone trophies at the 26th Latin Grammys.
Among the 12-step treatments are skin-changing artotherapy, where patients endure a painful micro-needling session combined with a non-goal-oriented painting session; cryo cerebral rebirth, where the brain regresses to its early developmental stages; and temperature contrast celibation, where they receive an ice bath combined with sexual arousal restrain.
None of these treatments make clear sense — mainly because they aren’t real — but that’s exactly Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso’s point: Fame is all make-believe pandemonium and there is no real recovery from it.
The post Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso search for renewal in latest LP ‘Free Spirits’ appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
