MESTIZX is a project by the Amsterdam-based Ferragutti and Rosaly who dove into the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create a deeply personal meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest. They chose the title MESTIZX – a non-gendered version of the sometimes slurred Spanish colonial word for a “mixed person” - as a means of both challenging and embracing the liminality of their identities and artistic practices.

The music creatively infuses Latin rhythmic patterns and oblong swing from pre-and post-colonial Latin America into a collision of avant jazz, art punk, Chicago post-rock, bomba, plena, cumbia, Andean, minimal, electronica, and folk. A wholly original but undeniably universal sound – both of-the-moment and alluringly futuristic -MESTIZX contains points of reference and resonance for fans of Juana Molina, Café Tacvba, Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln, Liquid Liquid, Arto Lindsay, As Mercenarias, The Ex, Tortoise, Tom Zé, Elza Soares, La Mecanica Popular...It’s a vast, vibrant and encompassing spectrum of sounds, but at its core MESTIZX is a lucidly conscious collection of auto-biographical statements from Ferragutti & Rosaly on the deeply personalized effects of colonialism on geography, history, and identity. Despite its heavy subject matter, however, MESTIZX finds a lifeline in communal, celebratory, soul-bearing and movement-inducing music.

 

“Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and Frank Rosaly play freely with the nuances of Latin rhythms on their debut Mestizx, producing infectiously kinetic compositions that reference jazz, cumbia, bomba and much more.” — Ammar Kalia, The Guardian

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"…a coherent, unique sound culture landscape, that often has the most intoxicating

effect…The wealth of ideas is too great, the extreme cross-disciplinary plurality too
elegant.” 5 stars. — Concerto

“…communal, celebratory, soul-comforting and moving music.” — Jazz Fun

“*****” — Musik Express

“Album of the week July 2, 2024” — Worldwide FM

Best albums of 2024 so far — Treble Magazine

“… a timeless piece of art. 10/10“ - Justin Turford — Truth & Lies