Sotomayor’s Wabi Sabi is the funnest document of 2026

Shout out to subscriber N_Gorski for immediately’s decide. They popped into the feedback on final week’s advice to ask what I considered the brand new Sotomayor document. Well, I hadn’t really heard it but, however now I’m obsessed.

The group consists of siblings Raul and Paulina Sotomayor from Mexico City. Wabi Sabi is their first document since 2020’s Origenes, and it’s pure pleasure. You can look again by every part I’ve advisable during the last a number of months, and “fun” is just not the way you’d describe most of it. But that’s what Wabi Sabi is — it’s enjoyable, chaotic, and dancey as hell.

I used to be solely acquainted with Sotomayor earlier than this due to a short documentary about Raul’s varied tasks made by Ableton. In that video, he discusses how his method to creating music has modified over time, how he used to attempt to make issues sound “proper” and “clean,” however now it’s about “how much can we distort it” or “how much can we stretch it.”

You can definitely hear that within the music. The first observe, “Me dejo llevar,” opens with a synth arpeggio that has clearly been timestretched to inside an inch of its life. It’s loaded with digital artifacts. The complete observe has a lightweight crust, as if every part is clipping simply ever so barely. “Who’s there” equally bristles as the perimeters, sounding like a dance ground continually on the verge of erupting right into a riot.

The classic digital drum hits, droning bass, and reverb-drenched noise stabs by no means attain full catharsis, however simmer fantastically into album spotlight “Vida.” Here, Paulina finds a sultry gear as she croons over a UK garage-inflected observe that ultimately erupts into an afrohouse membership banger.

Wabi Sabi ricochets between genres with infectious abandon. Afrobeat, cumbia, electro pop, R&B, and extra all collide in what is definitely essentially the most enjoyable album of 2026 up to now. What makes it all of the extra spectacular is that, for all its unconventional sounds (a donkey jaw?) and stylistic excursions, Sotomayor nonetheless has a definite imaginative and prescient that holds the document collectively.

At no level does the chaos threaten to overwhelm. Never does it really feel just like the duo are merely throwing issues on the wall to see what sticks; every part is a fastidiously made determination in service of the occasion. The gently meandering guitar of “Yo se todo de ti,” the basic home of “Todo se derrumba,” and the dancehall of “Prende la palma” all really feel unified by Paulina’s simple charisma on the mic and Raul’s uninhibited sonic curiosity.