Roxana Amed - Todos los Fuegos (2025) Hi-Res

When singer-songwriter Roxana Amed began producing Todos los fuegos, her new album out May 23, she wanted to revive the songs she grew up with; the ones that defined her appreciation for popular music and the cultural landscape of Argentina. Serú Girán undoubtedly laid the foundation for that sound, and Charly García, as a composer, brought melody and poetry to that identity. This is how she created "Salir de la melancolía," the first single now available on all digital platforms. This composition was originally part of the album Peperina (1981), Serú Girán's last studio album before their split in the early 1980s. At the beginning of the song, we're surprised by an audio clip of a scene from the film Gilda (1946), starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford, in which an argument, and more, between the two characters can be heard as a prologue. For Charly, cinema always occupied a prominent place, and whenever possible, he would translate this into his musical creations, whether in songs or concerts, where he would often screen his favorite films. According to the lyrics, "a friend" struggles to break free from a controlling and toxic masculinity, and the author invites him to "let her be what she wants to be" and to "break the chains of being a man and of possessing," with an irresistible candor ahead of its time. The song, in its original version, opens with a dizzying, pianistic melody, sung by the members of Serú Girán themselves, and was another element that caught the attention of Amed, renowned for her versatile vocal style. For this production, Amed enlisted his compatriot Leo Genovese (Esperanza Spalding, Wayne Shorter), a renowned pianist for his career in the United States, capable of combining the world of jazz with the essence of Argentine rock. Genovese, a native of Santa Fe from Venado Tuerto, played and arranged this iconic song. She also wanted to share Argentina's musical treasure with musicians from other latitudes, and so they brought in Tim Lefebvre (David Bowie, Saturday Night Live) on electric bass, and Kenny Wollesen (Tom Waits, Bill Frisell) on drums. The lineup is completed by wind instruments, Mark Small on sax and clarinet, and Joseph Monticello on flute. The recording took place at Sear Sound in New York City, an iconic studio where artists such as John Lennon and Sting, among other international and local figures, have recorded. In the version included on Amed's new album, "Salir de la melancolía" (Get Out of Melancholy) takes Argentine rock through a jazz perspective, with scat (a vocal improvisation technique), keyboards, and distortions on classical pianos, in a new take on Argentine music from a personal perspective. Roxana Amed ignited the spark for her next work with this preview, and now we'll have to wait for the release of the full album, so that her emotional recovery can become a bonfire of songs.