FEATURE:
Spotlight
Judeline
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A fascinating…
twenty-one-year-old artist who has released a series of brilliant singles and E.P., de la luz (2022), you need to know about Judeline. I am quite new to her work, though I am really interested. I think many others should check her out. I want to bring in a few interviews with the Cádiz-born artist. Lara Fernández is a tremendous Spanish singer. She began her career in 2020 at the age of seventeen after moving to Madrid to pursue a music career. In September, SPIN spoke with the wonderful Judeline. They highlighted an incredible talent with Venezuelan roots “enchanting her country’s underground, along with El Movimiento’s old and new school”:
“Judeline first popped up in early 2020 on “Solo Quiero Huir” (“I Just Want To Run Away”), a downtempo reflection on escapism dusted heavily with Auto-Tune and produced by Trillfox, shortly before the first COVID outbreak. A string of singles followed leading up to her first EP, de la luz (of the light), an ode to her hometown that reflects on heartbreak and isolation to the tune of pared-down electropop, house, and even the tonada, a Venezuelan folk genre popularized by Simon Díaz. Early track “tonada de la luz • madrugada” sees her collaborate with her father on the Venezuelan cuatro, a small guitar not unlike the ukulele.
“My dad would show me Venezuelan music on CDs, a lot of traditional and ‘80s pop like Medio Evo, in the car when I was small, and we were always in the car because [Caños de Meca] isn’t really connected to schools or hospitals or grocery stores. [Caños] being such a small village meant I spent a lot of time bored and alone. I was very inspired by the sea; sometimes it felt like a person,” she muses. “Whenever I’m lost or in a bad moment, I can go near the sea and feel that connection.”
She’s coy when asked about further diving into Venezuela’s rich musical history, speaking carefully but excited about the possibilities of tapping into her roots with experimental flair. “I honestly really want to,” she says. ”I feel like people will hear what I make and maybe be like ‘that’s not a joropo [Venezuela’s most popular folk rhythm]’, but in the end they’re genres I’ve listened to a lot. Sometimes my dad accompanies me on the cuatro and the bandola, and it’s special.
Outside of the Venezuelan music she grew up with, Judeline has been playing with El Movimiento’s signature sound: the dembow beat. At the end of 2022, she released “TÁNGER” and “ZAHARA,” the latter of which went viral. This love story in two parts—a floaty ballad about pining for a bad boy on the shores of Tangier and a perreo track full of longing to live with him in a house by the sea—sees Judeline embody a tortured muse plotting to break her lover out from behind bars. On her man’s shady business dealings, she sings with loyal resolve: “Tengo bien guardado lo que se cayó / Solo lo sabemos Dios, el mar, y yo” (“What fell away, I’m keeping close / That’s for me, God, and the sea to know.”)
“ZAHARA” blew like a desert wind through the Latin Club scene, soon being mixed and remixed by acts like Miami producer Nick León and Chilean-Swedish DJ Dinamarca. With her star rising parallel to Spain’s new avant-garde, artists like Rusia IDK’s Ralphie Choo and rusowsky as well as acts like former collaborator Oddliquor, Judeline found herself propped up in both the Spanish and Latinx undergrounds. More dives into South American and Caribbean genres followed with preceding singles “CANIJO,” a baile funk-tinged party starter about toxic love, and sultry downtempo reggaeton track “2+1,” an ode to threesomes that puts Britney Spears’ “3” to shame and features emerging reggaetonero Alvaro Díaz’s distorted voice on the hook. Judeline even covered Shakira’s first foray into reggaeton, “La Tortura,” becoming the first Spanish artist to appear on the Spotify Singles series.
“I feel like Puerto Rico is where the fathers of reggaeton came from. Most everything I’ve learned about the genre has come out of Puerto Rico,” she says. “I’ve always been a fan of J. Balvin and Tainy, artists who you can tell were inspired by what was happening in the U.S. and brought it to the genre, things like synthesizers and Auto-Tune. Even the samples Tainy uses…I feel like I’ve come to know reggaeton as a curious and advanced genre.
The unique cultural makeup of Cádiz—with its famous Moorish alcazar, with its echoes of Arab-Andalusian culture playing alongside Spanish Catholic aesthetics—and its quiet way of life have been a steady guide for Judeline as she’s found her artistic voice and its visual direction. The Nono + Rodrigo-directed video for single “mangata,” a track sonically built from a deep house beat and bolstered by chanting that calls to mind traditional Andalusian cante jondo (“deep song”), moves from her bedroom (where mysterious cloaked figures watch over her) to the rave and, finally, the sea. In the haunting final shot, Judeline pleads directly with the gods of the ocean, who shine moonlight on her as she wades the deep.
She continues to explore this world of underground parties, mysterious cloaked figures, sea gods, and Catholic mysticism on “INRI.” Rather than be weighed down by its name’s religious connotation, “INRI” sees Judeline seduce a potential love to the tune of flamenco handclaps and an Arabic pop-inspired beat. The accompanying video, shot in mosques and churches, syncretizes the sonic duality with visuals that draw from mysticism. At one point, Judeline sings to her reflection in a pool while donning a crown of thorns, evoking both Jesus Christ and the Hermetic magical principle of “as above so below.” Latest single “Zarcillos de Plata”, a touching ballad to a lover and the nightstand they share, shows a softer side. Judeline’s mystical bombast is tempered by an Auto-Tuned croon that stretches between earthly desire and communing with the divine.
“I have such a desire to experiment with my voice in this new era,” she says. “‘mangata’ has those choirs that remind me a bit of llaneros. I’ve felt the influence of flamenco as much as música llanera and joropos. [Venezuelan] music makes me feel that same solitude flamenco does, these super intimate moments.”
As she gears up to release her debut album later this year via Interscope, Judeline is continuing to build on what she’s laid a foundation for since moving to Madrid from Caños de Meca. Working with longtime producers Tuiste and Mayo and continuing to refine a proven ear for mixing multiple genres with high concepts, Judeline’s world—where bikers break our hearts on the beach before riding off, where we pine under the pale moonlight before getting on late-night flights to Puerto Rico, where spellcraft exists in the churchyard and the sea—slowly becomes reality”.
Her debut album, Bodhiria, is out on 25th October. There will be a lot more attention the way of Judeline when it arrives. There are not that many recent interviews with Judeline at the moment. I hope that more do become available in the next week. I want to end with an interview from Rolling Stone. I think that Judeline’s debut album will rank alongside the best and most essential of this year. She is an original and fascinating talent who I hope commands huge stages very soon. Her music is definitely helping bring Spanish artists to the fore. Something we do not hear in the media and radio too much. If you have not heard this artist then check her out now:
“Since she started making music, the 21-year-old artist constantly created characters and personas. One that kept popping up was Angel-A, a woman she couldn’t seem to shake from her songs. “I always loved that name and, for a while, I was sad that I had called myself Judeline,” she says with a laugh. (Judeline actually took her name from the Beatles song “Hey Jude.”) She started writing from the perspective of Angel-A, eventually shaping a story that’d become her debut album, Bodhiria. The LP, out Oct. 25, is a gorgeous, labyrinthine narrative of a woman trapped in a surreal kind of afterlife, desperate for her lover to remember her. “The album represents those highs and lows — it takes you through that journey,” Judeline says.
The LP starts with “bodhitale,” a spoken-word intro in which the album character confesses her love to the person she wants to be with and tells him how deeply connected they are. (She cleverly credits the song as being by Judeline, featuring Angel-A.) It’s on the haunting “Luna Roja” that Judeline’s protagonist starts to realize her lover is forgetting her, making way for more intense sounds on the album. “That’s kind of the point where it descends into something more toxic,” Judeline says. The hurried “Joropo” follows; it’s a standout that experiments with the Venezuelan genre of the same name while adding in ripples of Autotune and electronic-driven flourishes.
The plot twist works well for Judeline’s voice and style: Her vocals are ethereal and incandescent when they need to be, despairing and frantic during the album’s more intense turns. “I feel like I played with my voice a lot [on this album],” she says. “I usually sing very quietly — but for example on ‘Joropo,” I break with that.” The album also serves as a look at the cutting-edge talent among a new generation of Spanish artists: Judeline teams up with the ever-intriguing artist/producer Rusowsky on “Heavenly,” while Rusowsky’s longtime collaborator Ralphie Choo — who just worked on the Rosalia track “Omega”—appears in the production credits a few times. Other production highlights come from Tuiste and Mayo, whom Judeline has been working with for years, and Judeline herself.
For her, the entire album has been a process — one that’s allowed her to keep leveling up and finding new avenues as an artist. “Above all, this was a lot of learning — it’s much harder than I imagined to finish a project,” Judeline says. Still, she’s hoping her listeners walk away with a clear vision of the ideas she had, and the imagery that existed only in her head before she finished Bodhiria. “I would want it to take people somewhere, for scenes, moments, and feelings to appear in their heads,” she says. “I would be happy if it really moved something inside them”.
On 25th October, we will get this much-anticipated and sensational debut from Judeline. One of the most promising rising acts of the moment, there is a bright future ahead for her. I am really keen to see where she heads next. Go seek out and follow her. In a music landscape filled with artists that sound like others, there is something original and unique about Judeline. When it comes to this incredible young artist, there really is…
NOBODY like her.
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