Aguadilla synth-pop outfit Buscabulla turn their tropical dreams into reality with their rousing new song, Vmono, or Lets Go. It is the lead single off their upcoming debut album, which is due for release in 2020.
Guided by a brisk drumline snare and silky vocals from Raquel Berrios, Vmono is a wispy retelling of the bands real-life journey. Although born in Puerto Rico, the New Artist You Need to Know vets had been settled in New York City for years until Hurricane Mara struck the island in 2017, inspiring the couple to return home and rebuild. Viene, vmonos/Its late already, Berrios sings. As one comes, another one leaves/Miles without looking back/Fire on this tropical route.
Directed by Claudia Calderon, the video sees bandmates Raquel Berrios and Luis Alfredo Del Valle fall asleep in New York City and awaken on a Puerto Rican shore. After being startled by a young girl beating a snare drum, the two follow a group of revelers, dressed in frilly, candy pink Carnival garb. Together they march and play music through the streets of Arecibo and Hatillo, as has been the local tradition since 1823. The crew upturns a festival float to reveal a single word spelled out on its roof: REGRESA, or COME BACK.
The video for Vmono is an amalgam of several Neo-Cultural expressions of ancestral traditions celebrated in regions close to our own personal history in Puerto Rico, Buscabulla explains in a press statement. [There are] the Vejigantes from Ponce, where Luis was born and raised, and the Festival of Masks in Hatillo, where Raquels ancestors are from. Like her, [they] emigrated to New York, made a life there, and came back to Puerto Rico to live out the rest of their lives With the mass-exodus of Puerto Ricans to the mainland U.S., economic decline accompanied by the displacement of Puerto Ricans and our traditions, we hoped to capture the essence of these festivities, which by their very nature and existence are a form of celebratory resistance.