Havana 4:00 AM / Jotabarrioz

In this Havana that is falling/

This city full of bodies/

These streets simulate deserts/

Thanks to art I am not dead.

Havana 4:00 AM

Havana wakes up at 4:00 am, wrapped in melodies that embrace, in memories and images that give us back the love, the euphoria, the fears, the doubts and nostalgia of a generation. A city in which, after all, the only thing left is to move forward, dispossessed and devoid of leaves, but still alive. 

Thus, set in the early hours of dawn and reflected in sound symbols and verses that refer to that moment of the day, comes this phonogram by Jotabarrioz; a photographic album that travels through the city in each song, with a voice at times torn, or energetic, or sensual, and through images that also find refuge in more intimate spaces. 

Unlike his singles previous, Havana 4:00 AM —made up of eight pieces and published under the Puntilla Music label— it has a more digital sound. Jotabarrioz's solo debut album covers genres such as lo-fi pop, reggaeton, neoperreo, trap, contemporary R&B, song, ballad, rap, and fusion with other elements of Cuban sonority. Heartbreak, the wear and tear of a relationship that has finally foundered, hope, the ups and downs in emotions, how to continue after a breakup/farewell, and the influence and importance of certain presences that leave traces in our lives, are some of the themes of this phonogram.

In addition, the high number of collaborations is obvious, a characteristic that identifies it with the trends of the global music industry., and that brings new nuances to an album whose lyrics arise with the emergence of different moods. In Ghost, third trackJota is accompanied by David Blanco, one of the most talented musicians on the island's pop-rock scene; while in the next topic, Expect, appears Alfie, member of the group Qva Libre. Then in hot-chat, rappers El Individuo and JD Asere take part, both with a strong presence in the Cuban hip hop scene in recent times.

Experienced emotions or feelings make up an x-ray of this phonogram with a story divided into three moments: before / during / and after an inevitable breakup. What has been experienced before the outcome, Jotabarrioz presents us in small bursts, like signs, to which he returns from the remembrances: the afternoons looking at the sea, the kisses in the dark. Meanwhile, in Each picture —second track— alludes to the pain caused by the longing for what is no longer there (I am sure that this scene will be familiar to more than one of us); and it is difficult to accept that the days have passed and spring has not yet arrived again. Alcohol, written unanswered, another night of amnesia somewhere or another body are escape doors that close in our faces, because the intended oblivion does not arrive: the time stops.

Expect, reminds us of someone who —despite not being— returns again and again to our memory, when he does not fall asleep next to his nakedness and in the storm. In a song that alludes to intruders, to third parties who may be on the lookout for the slightest imbalance (interpreted as an opportunity) in a relationship. Sincerity as consolation and prison. The unfulfilled promises that distance us even more... Insatiable need to be close. A distance, in turn, that does not allow us to breathe. 

In Havana 4:00 a.m., that interlude, there are allusions impossible to ignore and that appear as a background, among them, the film Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate), by Juan Carlos Tabío and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Habáname, a song by Carlos Varela —where you can also see the mystery and suffering caused by the wear and tear of the city— and memories of underdevelopment, vinyl record scratching through. This fifth track of the album is very intertextual: it is also cohabited by other endearing cinematographic fiction fragments such as Vampires in Havana, Havana Blues, Four seasons of Havana, and The survivors. Small pieces of a puzzle/mosaic that, in the form of winks, reflect a complex Cuban society with problems as acute as stones   immovable. 

Will we really be able to detach ourselves from everything we feel? That's what we try, at least from resignation. bad love song it could then be that last letter, the last attempt to share more time with those who have us dopamine scented the brain. It is not so easy to give up the plans that we thought together but that will no longer be, the hugs that we yearned for infinite, the lips getting closer.

According to Jotabarrioz, the name of this production responds to its moments of low light. Each song, he says, is a phase of his night. His plots emerged in the early morning hours, in the moments where, perhaps, creation flows best. That's why Havana 4:00 AM It should be heard in its natural habitat, which is at night, preferably with a broken heart, or at least with dim lighting that muffles the heart a bit. Its enjoyment implies opening ourselves, searching within ourselves from that non-place where, although vulnerable, we are more human, and letting the cracks allow entry. —in the end— of the light.

Listen Havana 4:00 AM here.