When Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso land on a concept, they follow it through full force. “It helps us develop characters and understand how we’re going to carry it across the year,” says Paco, speaking to CLASH in London during a preview of their new album, ‘Free Spirits’.
The two wear loose grey slacks in a get-up that recalls Jedis prepping for a BODYBALANCE™ class (Ca7riel even rocks a rat tail to further the evocation). The ‘Free Spirits’ concept not only informs their hairstyles, press conferences and music videos, but the songs themselves, the tracklisting of the album, and the feel of the music. “We talk a bit about everything we experienced last year; getting a lot of recognition and playing all over the world,” says Paco.
In the past 24 months, the Argentine duo went from independent musicians who achieved modest fame as solo artists in Latin America to global superstars who’ve taken on Coachella to Glastonbury. The journey was propelled by the viral success of their Tiny Desk in 2024, which saw their trap-laced debut ‘Baño Maria’ opened up by simmering bossa nova rhythms led by softly strummed guitars over shifting percussion, with Ca7riel’s falsettos neatly entwining around Paco’s husky verses.
The two reflected on their drastic insertion into the major label world in the steroid-fuelled world of the 2025 album, ‘PAPOTA’, a pop-tinged funk satire on the falsities of the mainstream machine. That album only further rocketed their fame and won them five Latin Grammys in the same year they performed 60 tour dates across four continents. “That came with new problems, new ways of feeling,” reflects Paco.
Finding a territory to describe the downs that follow the sugar rush of success, the pair settled on the concept of the wellness centre – Free Spirits – complete with an origin story that involves none other than Sting (the press notes describe Free Spirits as “a holistic retreat that [Sting] has quietly operated for the past 35 years”.) There are other moments of celebrity too, like the new breezy single ‘GOO GOO GA GA’, with Jack Black featuring on baby coos to echo the main hook, “I want to be your baby”.
While it borders on overblown, the album isn’t just a pisstake; there’s some moments of honesty here, a satire that dabbles deeply into personal struggle. Take the stomping ‘Muero’, which tackles the tightrope of excess (“this life consumes me, I can hold on, but I don’t know until when”); the apathy of ‘Nada Nuevo’ (“No one invents anything new / everything has already been done”); or the frantic giddiness of chasing superficial highs on club whopper ‘Lo Quiero Ya!’, which sees choral voices disrupted by a pulsating beat courtesy of Fred again… while Paco spits “I want everything, NOW!”
We sit down (cross-legged, barefoot, eyes closed, sage wafting) to ask them about unpacking the musical world of wellness and the impact of Sting’s life lessons.
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You always find worlds to put your albums in: ‘Baño Maria’ was immersed in the bathtub, ‘PAPOTA’ was at the gym. Now we’re in a wellness centre. Why do you add territories to your music?
Paco Amoroso: I think songs alone aren’t enough right now to tell stories and get the public fully into an environment.
Ca7riel: It’s to put a scenography behind it, so the story is told better and people understand our changing ‘behaviours’…
There is also a change in the music: Baño Maria leans into explosive rap, while PAPOTA lies in a funk-pop world. Free Spirits is a bit more erratic…
PA: It’s an evolution of what came before. After the Tiny Desk, we got the confidence to express ourselves like we wanted. More risky in terms of instrumentation, lots of chords, rhythm changes, all supported by the lyrics. That’s why things are a bit more freakier than before, because the themes themselves are freakier.
Musically, we’re hearing a bit more influence of the East on the album; is this to do with the album’s themes of spirituality and ritual? Were you listening to anything to inform this influence?
Ca7riel: I’ll tell you a sad reality. I consume a lot of internet, a lot of Instagram. Instagram takes me to the east because I’m bored of the west. There’s a bunch of things I’m interested in Asia, for example, and that’s where my algorithm leads me to. We also travel a lot.
P.A: We thought it would be fun to make a reference of each country we go to, which didn’t really end up staying much in Free Spirits, but it was part of the initial exploration behind the album.
You are known for parody and humour, but some dark things are going on here, like the lyrics: “I almost killed myself, but today I feel better” on ‘Ha Ha’…
Ca7riel: Yeah, it’s real depression. The puta vida, the truth. But we’re always growing, so we don’t really have a choice but to speak the truth. The world is difficult. It’s an opportunity to talk about what we’ve experienced.
Sudden fame is very particular to your story. But there’s also something that strikes a wider generational chord about the problems of wanting more and never feeling satisfied. Did you think about how your audience would react to those types of emotions?
P.A: Yeah. It’s this idea that when someone has money, life will be resolved, everything will be fine, and you will be happy. That was the first topic we thought we needed to discuss in this record.
It’s good to see that you’re happy and healed now. When we spoke last year, you said you’d be able to handle the ride because, quote, “you’re still young and still have collagen in your face”.
Ca7riel: I have increasingly less collagen in my face, which is the reality. The collagen is going, everything goes. Life is short, money isn’t everything, but it helps. It’s the moment to be a free spirit, to remove the burdens.
What was the best lesson that Sting taught you?
P.A: He told us that he drinks one glass of wine and he goes to sleep.
He knows when to stop…
Ca7riel: We met him at a time when we were working at high speed. He simply advised us to slow down so we wouldn’t crash this beautiful ship we have, my friend and I, which is going terribly fast. Life has a lot of curves, so at that speed, you won’t be able to steer.
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‘FREE SPIRITS’ is out now.
Words: Charis MacGowan
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