Back in 2020 Sandoval released Howilis, the debut Surcarilita album released on cassette by the good folks at Bud Tapes. It put the project on the map in both her home of Tijuana and San Diego’s DIY scene. Together with collaborator and bandmate Ana Cossio, Sandoval found a community of like-minded artists, playing shows and honing her penchant for writing sweet indie pop songs elevated with innovative production and unique stylistic choices. 

Now Surcarilita is back with sophomore album, Mírala Mirando, which preserves everything good about the debut and builds on it with flourishes that keep things fresh and surprising. This is apparent from opener ‘Silly Freaky’, which sounds like an early Free Cake For Every Creature song, strummed electric guitar and bounding drums spinning around Sandoval’s understatedly beautiful vocals. It’s the perfect illustration of what Surcarilita does so well, fun and energetic and a little bit noisy, but somehow calm and tender too. “Sweetness and softness and strangeness are all wrapped up together,” as we put it in our review of Howilis, “earworm melodies and earnest vocals layered beneath fuzzy instrumentation, or almost discordant rhythms that fizz with energy.” 

‘Tag Along’ has that golden hour calm of springtime dusk, acoustic guitar accompanied by the needling whine of singing saw like a breeze squeezing through an old window frame. Then in the final third it is as if darkness falls and the vocals mimic this high-pitched melody, ooh-ing gently like a chorus of benevolent cartoon ghosts.

These idiosyncrasies mark the album a elevate it beyond a collection of simple pop songs. Take the squidgy synths on ‘Garden Squirrel’, ‘July’s plinky whimsical backing, the jingle-like melodies of ‘Pebbles’ which evoke Dear Nora’s catchy digi-pop. ‘Tiempo Para Ti’ has echoes of an early-era Casiotone For the Painfully Alone release, modulated vocals bubbling forth in unsteady rhythms alongside subtle synths. 

There are relatively uncomplicated moments on Mírala Mirando too. ‘Coin Coin Dream’ is a slice of scrappily lo-fi acoustics, while ‘Ripening Seed’ is almost a folk song, focused on patiently picked guitar and Sandoval’s sincere vocals. Closer ‘Walking Online’ ties both these threads together neatly, summing up the whole album in the process. Just under two minutes of subdued synth pop that showcases Surcarilita’s unique creative outlook. Soft and pillowy as a cotton wool cumulus cloud, and threaded with a warm glow that feels calm and welcoming. As Bud Tapes put it: “Now grab a cat, plop down in your favorite spot on the couch, and enjoy this magnificent new album from one of DIY music’s most magical minds.” 

Mírala Mirando is out now on cassette tape via Bud Tapes. Grab a tape from their Bandcamp page, or a digital copy from the Surcarilita Bandcamp. 

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Comprising of thirteen mostly short songs, Holiwis is an album that never settles in one place. Sandoval writes and plays everything herself, excepting for drums, bass and mandolin on several tracks from Ana Cossio, and the result is wonderfully idiosyncratic. Sweetness and softness and strangeness are all wrapped up together, earworm melodies and earnest vocals layered beneath fuzzy instrumentation, or almost discordant rhythms that fizz with energy. Take for example the wild percussion on ‘Community’, which clunks and clatters over Sandoval’s vocals and scuzzy guitar with all the wild fervour of a DIY basement show.

In comparison, ‘Heart/Wire’ sounds tender and sensitive, recalling Free Cake For Every Creature in its quiet sentimentality, although still spikes in places with flurries of strummed guitar. This is something of a theme across Holiwis, the way each song combines sounds and emotions, sometimes directly overlaid on one another. ‘Truly Awake’ feels like a multicoloured hallucination, a strange echoey pop song adorned with beeps and blips and tropical flourishes, while ‘Catching Up’, the record’s longest track at over three and a half minutes, is built on subtle beats and cymbal bursts and layers of vocals that overlap and dissipate. There are moments of clarity too, when songs are stripped back to their bare bones. ‘Derail’ shimmers with digital static, while ‘I still remember you’ barely rises above a subdued murmur, and ‘Nighthike’ is a crystal clear folk song, just acoustic guitar and Sandoval’s voice.

But surcarilita is strongest when throwing everything together, collecting sparks from the friction between a song’s dozen constituent parts. Listen to ‘Come Outside/Inside’ and try to deny there’s something joyous about it. What could have been a totally okay slice of indie pop transformed into something truly unpredictable and singular. It’s what surcarilita is all about, the bravery to experiment and the instinct to tease melody from a tangle of elements.

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