The club is traditionally the place where you can escape all the problems in your life and the world at large, but it’s where Ela Minus goes to confront them. On her 2020 full-length debut, acts of rebellion, the Colombian producer drew upon her eclectic musical CV—Bogotá hardcore kid, Berklee-trained jazz musician, techno convert, touring drummer for electro-goth queen Austra, professional synth builder—to make an album that channeled the communal joy of dance music and hedonistic allure of subterranean after-hours spaces into punky protest music. But if that record’s collection of misfit mantras and anti-capitalist critique transformed the dancefloor into a pulpit, Minus’ second album, DÍA, uses it more like a confession booth.
For Minus, the period surrounding acts of rebellion was one of both celebration and dislocation. Just before the album was released to international acclaim, Minus had to give up her Brooklyn apartment and recording space due to financial constraints during COVID lockdown. She’d spend the next few years bouncing between Bogotá, Mexico City, L.A., Seattle, New York, and London, desperate to find a new place that felt like home while feeling the pressure to capitalize on the career momentum sparked by her debut. By the time she was able to piece together a new album, she realized the songs weren’t speaking to her, prompting an 11th-hour rewrite that better reflected her unsettled state of mind. That extra time and attention pays off massively with DÍA, an album that pushes Minus’ musical vision outward while burrowing deeper inward lyrically. Like acts of rebellion, the album carves out a safe space for outsiders to harness strength in numbers, but trades in the DIY basement-club vibe for the open-air expanse of a festival field. And while it retains her debut’s insurrectionary edge, DÍA recognizes that self-care is a crucial first step toward building a better world for all.
Of course, the first step toward self-care is admitting that you need it. In DÍA’s opening minutes, Minus emerges from acts of rebellion’s nocturnal netherworld, capturing the sobering sensation of a sunrise hitting your face after a night spent dancing in the shadows. Musically, “Abrir Monte” picks up where the joyous second half of Jamie xx’s “Gosh” left off, with a low-end two-chord pattern serving as the backdrop for a cluster of synth starbursts, while flickering beats conjure a city gearing up for the morning rush. The track doubles as the extended intro to “Broken,” a cry for help that swells into a soul-purifying baptism-by-rave and seamlessly fuses Minus’ artful idiosyncrasies with emergent dance-pop ambitions. Call it “Fever Ray of Light.”
