Kali Uchis is petty. But she’s well aware, and it makes for great music.
In her newest album Orquídeas, Uchis embodies the ritual cruelties and delights of life as a natural femme fatale. Each song exhibits a mood unmistakably Almodóvarian with its vivid, saturated color palette, high drama, and vintage glam. The world-building in Uchis’s newest release is unmistakable—opener “¿Cómo Así?” paints a world of airy luxury, complete with crying single tears and vintage robes. “Me Pongo Loca” continues the lighthearted fun, as she playfully admits “Yeah, I get a little bit crazy” before shrugging it off and continuing on.
Much of Orquídeas reprises the shimmering daydreams Uchis is known for, luxuriating in background harmonies and swanky synth arpeggios that feel like they’re enveloped in obviously charmeuse fabrics. “Young, Rich & in Love,” “Diosa,” and “Perdiste ” were designed to play in the background while you bathe in a clawfoot tub full of milk and rose petals. “Heladito” is a lovely return to form; longtime fans will recognize the doo-wop anxious longing of her Por Vida EP. Divas can be hopeless romantics too.
Uchis has built her entire repertoire on stories of lust and anguish, fantasies where women are powerfully tender, and completely in their emotions. In “Me Pongo Loca,” she spells out this naked truth: “Digo que a mí me vale cero/Pero tampoco soy hecha de hielo” (“I say that I don’t care at all/But I’m not made of ice either”). On Orquídeas, the Kali Uchis Doctrine of Reina Ideology—in which drop-dead goddesses never need to text back—is more potent than ever. Most importantly, the sound of Orquídeas represents the fluidity of being a diaspora kid—even if the suits will never get it.