“When you release an album, it’s really magical, like opening a door, and I feel like I can finally have some fun,” says Raquel Berrios, one-half of Puerto Rican indie duo Buscabulla, going on to say she and her husband/Buscabulla’s other-half, Luis Del Valle, are excited to get out of the studio and on the road with their band and crew for their current monthlong US tour, which kicked off Thursday in Miami and will have the group headlining The Foundry at The Fillmore this coming Tuesday, June 24th. The album that she’s referring to is Se Amaba Así, Buscabulla’s second LP, which dropped on Friday the 13th, which Berrios explains to me during a recent phone chat is fitting, considering the album’s subject matter: “Being in a relationship in a band is hard and we decided to write about it… I think it’s part of the theme, it’s the dark side of love, it explores relationships in crisis. It’s not like we planned it completely, but when we were asked if we could release it on Friday the 13th, it was like, ‘Yeah, that makes perfect sense!’”
Se Amaba Así — which loosely translates to “The Way Love Was” – is Buscabulla’s first full-length for Domino (home of PHILTHY phriends and phavorites Flasher, Franz Ferdinand, Real Estate, SASAMI, and Upchuck, who had previously released a handful of singles for the duo) and the follow-up to 2020 debut LP Regresa, which Berrios explains was the product of a very different time for the band: “Our first album is really different. We had just moved back to Puerto Rico after living in New York for 10 years. It was a really big transition, and I had a very idealized vision of what it would be like to come home.” And it’s everything that’s happened in those five years that provided the material and sentiments found on LP #2: “A pandemic happened, a feature with Bad Bunny, my father’s death… It was like a low, a high, a low, a high, a low, a high… And all of that affected my relationship with Luis.”
The Bad Bunny feature Raquel’s referring to is “Andrea,” off of 2022’s Billboard chart-topping, GRAMMY Award-winning Un Verano Sin Ti. The appearance even led to the Puerto Rican megastar taking Buscabulla along as support on his World’s Hottest Tour, characterized by Berrios as, “These crazy stadium shows.” And this isn’t the only notable collaboration of Buscabulla’s. Regresa features contributions from Nick Hakim, Nydia Caro, and Helado Negro, and Buscabulla has also featured on tracks by Alex Anwandter, Poolside, and Empress Of. Their 2014 self-titled debut EP was even produced by someone of a relatively legendary status: “One of the first producers we were with was Dev Hynes/Blood Orange, which was through a contest with Converse and Guitar Center. The prize was you got to be in the studio with him for a week.”
While Se Amaba Así isn’t afraid to explore the dark side of love (In a recent press release, Berrios characterizes latest single, “Miraverahí,” as, “A thumpy disco track about perceptions changing in a romantic relationship… I wanted to play with the concept of vision, reflection, and disappearing to express the angst of trying to regain the loving feeling between two people.”), she explains to me that the band were interested in emphasizing the dualities of love, taking inspiration from Sonny & Cher, ABBA, and boy/girl Latin duos that were also in relationships. And she assures fans that, for the live show, “We’re still gonna be our fun selves.” This April Buscabulla released an official video for the album’s opening track, “El Camino,” which Raquel says served as the starting point for the live show: “The ‘El Camino’ video is our blueprint for a lot of this show. We prepared lights, and me and Luis dress the same… We’re focused on being both a musical duo and all of the spectacle and persona and who we are as artists, as opposed to who we are in our personal lives.”
*Get your tickets here.
