When I get home / Liana Milanés

The first contact is fundamental. The first approach between artist and public (with the first single, with the first concert) will always be defining. I want to start there. I came to Liana by chance. Instagram's algorithm showed me the video of The Gem. I immediately accessed his profile and consumed all the content. When the EP came out, I was already listening to it. The first impression I got from Liana was a feeling of naturalness and closeness.

The EP is called When I get homea clear allusion to that solitary routine we all have at the end of the day, full of feelings, ideas and emotions that converge in an internal dialogue where there is no room for outside voices. Liana decides to make herself known to her public with nothing less than her intimacy. thumbs up. 

Seen from a very general prism, his music is realized in the fusion of alternative genres. The sound line of the album reveals an inclination towards the feeling Cuban from the 60's and mixed with 90's R&B complemented with drill, touches of afrobeat jazz and indie pop. 

The lyrical discourse of the album is written by the singer herself. The youthful freshness can be felt in the music and is reinforced in the lyrics. The songs are dominated by a colloquial language typical of her generation, which uses without complexes and in a natural way her own and borrowed terms (flowsilver, silver, molar, plate, among others). There is no censorship or prudence in Liana's singing, because the album, let's remember, is a private monologue through which we get to know and connect with the artist, a little bit as a way of voyeurs. So we discover that Liana Milanés is an "alternative" girl because she is a child of globalization, but she is also Creole, and feels a strong connection with her roots, her ethnicity and her nationality. She uses these elements as banners and uses them to empower not only herself, but women in general, so the album emits a strong feminist vibe. 

A more detailed analysis of the themes confirms the cohesion that exists between them: Fans Club - Alone (entering the house), Alone - La Gema (undressing), Ancestors - Angel (thinking about life).

From the very beginning, the album consciously appeals to your auditory senses while it is suggestive for you to listen to the rest. So it is with Fans Club, a sample of hip hop with which Liana's lyricism is very well coupled, accompanied by a bass of drill. The song is an invitation to which, as she herself says, you will be able to put zero resistance while she captivates you and you start dancing in her Fans Club. It is followed by Alonechange of aesthetics. She closes the curtain when she gets home, says the verse, and everything becomes clear. We begin to connect with a more intimate, more real, more human Liana. And although the lyrics and the singer's voice may seem sad, the melody does not. The theme is chill and the rhythmic incites you to slow movement. I ask for a moment to highlight the lapse that goes from minute 01:04 to 01:26 where the voice of the artist takes center stage with a very well achieved melodic construction.      

Another notable offering on the album is Ancestros. The opening is a dialogue between the double bass and the piano. This is followed for the rest of the song by a rhythmic base of trip-hop on which runs a reflective song about the artist's roots. For the construction of this rap the author invites El Individuo, an artist versed not only in the genre, but with an articulate discourse that reveres the roots.

This first EP by Liana Milanés is an excellent start in her short individual career. Although she has only released, for the moment, a few collaborations and singlesThe artist has the academic experience of having been trained at the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory and the practice of her vocal leadership in the groups Son Jazz and Sello Cubano, in addition to her three years in the Caribe Girls orchestra. The album bears the stamp of her image as a reference for many Cuban women who find in her a model of energy, femininity and empowerment.

If there is a weak point in the EP, it is the eclecticism of the compositions (in whose creation Liana herself and JD Asere were involved as producer, accompanied in some songs by other artists such as Yoyi Lagarza and Tobías Alfonso). In such a complete product as this album is, I am disappointed that the message is sometimes lost at the expense of musical excesses, as it happens on The Gem. From my point of view, the message of this theme (which deserved special attention) loses preponderance before the baroque style generated by the fusion of the synthesizers, which produces a ostinato and the bass of drill.

When I get home had the executive direction of the singer herself along with Beatriz Primelles, the artist's manager, and Lizandra Gómez. I want to insist once again that the great coherence we find throughout the album is its greatest merit, and I suspect it is because we see the hand of Liana Milanés in every process. Her work could not be more faithful to her, nor the fans she has attracted.