L.A. artist delivers an ode to Sixties and Seventies sounds he loves
The music of Los Angeles singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Cuco has often sounded like it was beamed in from a future only he could imagine. His most recent album, 2022’s Fantasy Gateway, opened with an otherworldly whirr of space-voyage synths and the promise “to go where no human has gone.” Yet, his unique mix of R&B, bedroom pop, and psychedelia has always shown a love for tradition too — from tunes that nod to his Mexican roots to the 2017 YouTube cover of Santo & Johnny’s dreamy 1959 steel guitar serenade “Sleep Walk” that helped launch his career.
Cuco’s new album is his most grounded and tradition-loving to date. Ridin’ is a love letter to the Mexican-American “brown eyed soul” that was coming out of his native Southern California and other parts of the Southwest in the Sixties and Seventies — a sound that combined doo-wop and R&B with Latin influences in hits like Sunny and the Sunliners’ “Smile Now, Cry Later,’ Brenton Wood’s “The Oogum Boogum Song,” and War’s “All Day Music.” The album title specifically brings to mind War’s fuel-efficiency classic “Low Rider.” Cuco’s version doesn’t really get political that way. He’s more interested in the romantic side of the sound, especially the lush early-Seventies hits that were influenced by the lavish studio valentines of Philly soul.
Trending Stories
With it’s hopeful organ, swirling strings, sharp horns, cracking snare drums, tender melody, and flower-bearing vocals, “ICNBYH” could have absolutely made the R&B charts in 1971. “My 45” is a funky, string-bathed ode to rolling along with your girl, featuring a verse from rapper Jean Carter. The title cut is a slow and low cruising anthem with angelic backing vocals. The easygoing ballad “Para Ti” floats by like an old A.M. radio benediction wafting across our backyard on a summer afternoon, with its graceful Spanish verses. “Coming Up the Driveway” sets his breathily intimate crooning atop acoustic strumming and a tight groove for a folk-soul fantasia.
Cuco isn’t the most overpowering singer, but his airy, kindhearted falsetto works great playing off these delicate tracks, helmed by Amy Winehouse and Bruno Mars producer Tom Brenneck. Could this record go a little deeper? Maybe. But since the genre he’s calling back to was less about river-deep intensity than summertime sweetness, his blissed-out performances flow by perfectly, and the tunes stay with you. More than just historical cosplay, Ridin’ makes an old-school sound feel joyfully present.