Reader Stevie suggests a song I swear we covered for one Latin Grammy Week but am apparently mistaken…
[Video][Website]
[7.76]
Stevie Kaye: As dolorous as Disintegration, “Un Beso” is a siren song from Kate Bush and Stevie Nicks’ sea of honey. Between Morrison’s Amor Supremo and Susanne Sundfør’s Ten Love Songs, it’s been a banner year for lexicons of love.
[8]
Brad Shoup: *whispers* uhhhh i think you better give her that kiss
[8]
Peter Ryan: This is the first Carla Morrison song that makes me nervous. It’s not that she’s never gone this dark – the title of her last album translates to Let Me Cry, after all – but in the past she’s often tempered the gut-punches by hitching her sorrows to earnest, buoyant arrangements. The girl-group beat at the beginning of “Un Beso” offers a fleeting glimpse of that earlier work before diving headlong into murkier waters; as soon as that sinister bass note kicks in it’s all contagions, hallucinations, infusions. The surrounding clatter is at once tense and woozy – buckets of reverb and cascading toms and death organ synths doubling down on the rotten desire of her lyric. That the titular kiss emerges slyly from a pair of not-even-thinly-veiled threats only heightens the impulse to check my mirrors, look over my shoulder.
[8]
Tomás Gauna: Her vocals on this one really sound like Natalia Lafourcade. It seems like she’s leaving behind the Lana Del Rey-isms from her earlier work, to make something a little bit more synthpop inspired. And I like that change, I think.
[7]
Thomas Inskeep: Swelling, building indie-rock — think Calexico on mild stimulants — from a woman from Baja California who, it should not surprise you to learn, has been produced previously by Natalia Lafourcade. This gets more anthemic as it proceeds, thanks not only to its arrangement but to Morrison’s strong voice.
[6]
Scott Ramage: The palette is very Lykke Li, but where she would be nervous and innocent, Morrison is guarded and vulnerable. A subtle difference, but a vital one. The resigned organ chords and rich guitars fill enough space to make “Un Beso” sound rich, without taking away from the space Morrison owns. Her delicate, nuanced performance is emotionally affecting without being contrived. Even at its most decadent, drawing to a close with crashing cymbals and Morrison’s haunting howl, “Un Beso” still seems characterised by restraint.
[8]
Gaya Sundaram: Carla Morrison’s soft vocals may be the perfect foil for the dark and heavy “Un Beso,” but there is also a deliberation to her phrasing that belies her delicate notes.
[9]
Alfred Soto: A bold ballad not too dissimilar from what Florence + the Machines have essayed, with tumbling percussion out an ’82 Cure album.
[7]
Austin Brown: The drums on the song are misleading: they sound like they’d be marching forward, but instead they lurch snakelike, letting the demands of the lyric creep up in waves. Suddenly, without warning, the power of Morisson’s vibrato and the imposing organ sound at her side are right on top, and there’s no real way to escape them. Not that you’d want to, of course.
[7]
Hannah Jocelyn: “Un Beso” sounds gorgeous— Claudius Mittendorfer’s reverberating mix is worth a mention on its own, especially the drums and vocals — and builds magnificently. I also love the way Morrison sings the title of the song, tossing it off amidst the stormy arrangement until she gets sucked in herself at the end. The wall of sound becomes more grandiose before finally decreasing to the point where in the last second, it is possible to hear someone abruptly lifting their hands off the once-overwhelming synth.
[8]
Conor McCarthy: I’m reminded heavily of “Wicked Game,” but where “Wicked Game” always felt lonely to me, this is overwhelmed with the feel and sound and smell of a partner’s body. Quickly perusing YouTube for Morrison’s other songs was a disappointment, but I would devour an album of songs like “Un Beso,” songs that want to devour me back.
[9]
Will Adams: From “Wicked Game” to “Blue Jeans” to “Beso,” the pairing of a vi-V-II chord progression with a slow-burning affect continues to hit that same pleasure center I associate with California sunsets.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: The tension between drama and stillness in this song, with its pomp-and-circumstance production but Morrison’s small, soft voice at the center, reminds me of the wave of Scandinavian pop this site loved a few years back, not necessarily in its sonics but in its effect. There’s a reserved chilliness to her impulsive romance that I predictably respond to, and an undercurrent of dark humor that marks it as distinctively Mexican in this year of disgrace 2015.
[9]
Ramzi Awn: Carla Morrison’s barn-like delivery invokes the best kind of western pop, and her slight Belinda Carlisle edge helps. As easy as Chris Isaak, but better.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: Pop with dark stirrings that falls somewhere on the Katherine Bait Scale between limp noir costuming and full-on dark swoon. The more I listen, the more Morrison’s understated delivery helps this slink toward the latter end.
[8]
Patrick St. Michel: The relatively slow way this unfolds initially seems unexciting — a lot of good sounds and airy singing, but no real tension. When it finally reaches the final stretch though, it more than makes up for it.
[6]
Megan Harrington: Almost from the very beginning, “Un Beso” is underpinned with a droning synth note that’s as grey as the final bit of ice crusted to the curb when winter ends. It identifies the song as a strong match for winter’s histrionics (if you experience them; if you don’t, it’s more like air conditioning), dark and cold already, but willing to go as dark and cold as your soul in a March blizzard.
[9]