Antonio Herrera is from Mexico and based in Berlin. A young man plugged hardcore into the sounds and vibes of 90s R&B, he’s George Michael reborn.
His new LP Solitude provides the perfect soundtrack to a night out…not just a party album, there are tracks you can get dressed and put your make up on to, tracks to nod to on the train going to the club, and enough material to keep you dancing and pumping into the early hours….and then there’s the comedown.
He’s not ashamed of gifting us a pure party album, fun and frolicsome in the style of the best exuberant pop albums
Antonio Herrera wears his influences on his sleeve. He’s not ashamed of gifting us a pure party album, fun and frolicsome in the style of the best exuberant pop albums of the last years. Single Underdog is him talking back to his aggressors – lines like “You fucking faggot / you think that really hurts me?” speaking of trials and tribulations that any young gay man has gone through at one point or another.
But the overwhelming vibe of the Gesamtwerk is one of exuberant joy. He’s dancing and determined that you dance too.
I sank into the album properly though with the dance groove of Skin: now we’re out in the car and riding through the city lights on the way to the club; now we’re head down and dancing with strobes slicing through dry-ice air; White Walls finds our hero watching his lover dance from the sidelines, eyes on another torso; Stuck On You is the shrug of admitting to involuntary attraction despite everything; in this analogy, Frost is the sound of comedown in the cold early hours of the morning, a sadness mixed with a determination to carry on.
While Solitude is still the sound of a young artist finding himself, this young unashamedly pop artist dances with the edges of darkness and with the limits of his genre to make it worth hearing what he does next.
The songs on the album were written by Antonio Herrera and co-produced by him and Berlin based electronic artist Akrobat (Solitude, Skin) Bulgaria beat maker and producer Goro (Underdog, Lovers Anymore) and Lithuania based artist Free Finga (Stuck on U, Akita), collaborations are Queer American Rapper Breezy (Underdog) Mexican art-pop singer ARYAH (Distress & Triumph) and American rapper Siddiq (Akita)
The album was recorded between Berlin and Mexico City.
