One Blood/Una Sangre (Narada)

Having listened to Lila Downs's 2001 album Border/La Linea over and over and over for the past few years, I was nervous about putting One Blood/Una Sangre into my CD player. I expected it to be good but was prepared for a letdown. How could she possibly match the brilliant perfection of that earlier recording?

I needn't have worried. Downs, who calls both Mexico and the U.S. home, shifts her powerful voice through time and space, blending pre-Colombian and Mexican folk instruments with electric guitars and programmed keyboards, traditional songs and rhythms with modern beats, timeless politics with timely issues, and Spanish and English with Purepecha and Trique languages.

Where Border was dedicated to Mexican migrants, One Blood is for "women, who inhabit past and present times, the ones who have given birth to their ideals", according to the album cover. The political message is obvious on songs like "Mother Jones", "Dignificada", and "One Blood", but Downs even makes "La Cucaracha" relevant. The chorus, about the cockroach who can no longer walk because he has no marijuana to smoke, is familiar, but lyrics about the corruption of politicians and references to Victor Jara and Che Guevara are new to me.

Although her own songs are works of genius, Downs also uses her voice and arrangements to make every piece of music hers, whether it's a Woody Guthrie medley or the Mexican classic "La Llorona" on Border, or One Blood's "La Bamba"--a song I thought I could live without ever hearing again until I listened to her beautiful reworking of it.

Her uniqueness also lies in her genius at echoing so many styles of Latin American music--while keeping the album remarkably cohesive. Downs's vocals are childlike, accompanied by a simple violin and drum, on the Trique Indian song "Yanahuari Níƒ ¯n", but she belts out "Paloma Negra" with as much emotion as the best of Mexico's ranchera singers. And "Una Sangre" (a different song than "One Blood") begins like an homage to the great Argentinean icon Mercedes Sosa, hinting at anthems such as "Síƒ ³lo Le Pido a Dios". The stunning range and power of Downs's voice is complemented by her international band, whose members are from the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, Cuba, and Japan (yes, the CD even has taiko drums).

í‚ ¡Qué maravilla!