Maria Raquel moved from Colombia to New York to follow her dream. This is her debut album. It’s full of passion and the guts it takes to do what she has done. She breathes new life into the haunting yearning of classic boleros and the pulsing insistence of classic cumbias. She shares the stage with many of New York’s finest Latin musicians in a live 16 piece orchestra of percussion, strings, horns, bass and guitar. Mucha Mujer features all original compositions recorded to analog tape (of course it’s on Daptone’s Chulo sublabel). It is reminiscent of classic recordings by artists like Celia Cruz, and La Lupe, but perhaps more gutsy. AArbor.