Written by: Dave Cantrell

Well it just comes from everywhere, doesn’t it? Not just ‘music’ itself – as that has forever been the case – but out-of-the-box, gently bent, often (as here) beguilingly inventive which is to say rather instantly addictive. And whereas that’s all good and swell so far as it goes, as it happens, in view of what we’re all witnessing transpire in the good ol’ US of A, the origin, the very impetus of this track from ORUÃ’s upcoming new LP Slacker (K Records, arriving October 24th) reflects with a keen – and not unpainful – personal perspective that, rather than devalue said impact by trying to summarize the incident, we’re just going to basically hand over the narrative to the band’s guitarist and singer Lê Almeida as it’s not something I could presume to represent with the same emotional impact:

“In December of 2023, after an Oruã US tour, I traveled to Cancún, Mexico, to accompany my partner Melanie Radford. Together we were going to perform a set of ambient music in a yoga session and Mel was also going to play with Built to Spill–it was all part of a huge Wilco festival in a big resort.

When we arrived, I was unfairly sent to a room at the airport where they claimed irregularities with my passport, but everything was OK. I was detained for a whole night in a room with several other immigrants (none of whom were white). The next day they sent me back to the United States and from there I took another flight to Brazil. The festival did absolutely nothing to help me and it’s quite possible that they didn’t realize how serious the situation was. A few months after the event, I wrote this song as an outburst, without any fear or remorse about reopening such a painful and intense wound.

“‘Mexico Suite’ is a questioning of some of the injustices that are so present and alive in the life of an artist traveling the world to spread his art. After developing a project for an artist’s residency in a peaceful and calm environment, the situation in Mexico hit hard and instigated even more struggles about racial and social equality. It is still extremely necessary to question white privilege. ‘Mexico Suite’ is about questioning, about self-respect and having courage.”

And, really, with that, and with nothing substantive to add from your correspondent, let’s watch the video. The song, while ostensibly of a gentle gait, positively seethes with the emotional fallout of their experience. [release info below]