The Weekly Coos

Coming off a performance with Rosalía at Coachella and appearing during Rosalía’s interview with Hot Ones, Rauw Alejandro decided to play the field and deliver a surprise album underneath the shadows of the highly anticipated Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). Playa Saturno is a continuation of Saturno, released last year; on it, Rauw Alejandro continues to deliver vibes as you hear a small detachment from his previous two albums, opting for more Reggaeton and Latin-Trap through a futuristic lens instead of bridging house and EDM head on. In doing so, we get a distinct side of Rauw, where he takes a step back and brings forward music resonant with his roots. Playa Saturno shows us what Rauw has learned much from Rosalía, one of which – heard on Hot Ones – learning to minimalize the overtures, and it gets done smoothly and graciously here, allowing the music to feel authentic while tempered comparatively; it’s not perfect, but one could say it’s damn near it with the nuances in the production, the features, and vocal performances, which never feel confined in a tight space.

As with some concept albums, you get brought in through an intro where an expression of musical self gets laid out for what to expect with the music: contextually focused on the style. As with many Reggaeton songs, you get lyrical content akin to love, relationships, and getting dirty on dance floors, sweeping you toward el perreo. While that is true here, it isn’t redundant or reductive in its approach, instead laying bare to his emotions or feeling the fire inside to flex hard as we hear him sing about this fictional woman who created a beach with their tears. But at the end of “Playa Saturno Intro,” Rauw Alejandro notes how his sound makes him happy but also how he finds the happy medium to collaborate with the love of his life, whose affinity for minimalism is a beautiful contrast to Rauw’s colorfully bombastic nature. Like past artists akin to Ivy Queen, who brought out more of the Hip-Hop flair, Rauw is showing his fans a world filled with good Reggaeton, not some Latin-Pop or Electronic-House hybrid. That isn’t to say the influences are absent; they just don’t have a commandeering presence that can become repetitive.

Playa Saturno has a more potent presence in the middle and second half, where it starts to expand its wings further, making use of the percussion and switching tempos and tones, giving us some solid range that is reminiscent of the past with a touch of modernism for good measure. It separates the anthemic “Ponte Nasty” from the synth-laced “Celebrando,” where we hear the drums in action, creating more of a foundation for a Hip-Hop flow to dominate. Though it starts well, it isn’t until “No Me La Moleste” with Ñejo & Dalmata where it truly picks up and thoroughly drives it home with the production, like the string arraignments notable of featured artist Ivy Queen’s production style makes a nostalgic presence without feeling shoed in. You hear on in other tracks as Rauw Alejandro continuously steers but doesn’t stray too far from the overly indulgent glitz and glamour he loves. In hindsight, one can say the same with Playa Saturno, which contains 15 producers, with Kenobi and Dímelo Ninow appearing on all of them, delivering smooth synergy in between. It lets him feel more like his creative self while still retaining an understanding for toning down the number of bombastic layers one can have with just one song, like the enigmatically fantastic “De Carolina” from Saturno.

That isn’t to say the sound of Playa Saturno is purely minimalistic; it’s not, but when you compare it to what Rauw Alejandro has released last, it’s a considerable step back that feels natural, like with “Cuando Baile El Sol.” As noted on Hot Ones with Rosalía, he spoke about how they taught each other their sense of style in terms of production and sounds they love to weave, and this album shows those lessons on display without taking away from the electronic glitz he loves. On the final song, “Baby Hello,” the Reggaeton notes are there in the rhythm and performance; here, Rauw and Bizarrap bring forth this delicious hybrid between Reggaeton and EDM, honing onto Rauw’s strengths and highlighting them further, like “Cuando Baile El Sol” or “Si Te Pegas,” which fleshes out some unique Drum-N-Bass influence into the percussion. It’s just more marvelous that we get to hear a legend like Miguel Bose sing over this kind of beat – kind of like when we heard Victor Manuel go full Reggaeton with some touches of Salsa on “Ella Lo Que Quiere Es Salsa,” with two artists who are ready to deliver that Perreo sucio.

Most of the music gets strung together as fun but austere dancefloor anthems – there is some depth to the writing, but it vocally steers there – like with the song “Cuando Baile El Sol,” where the unique touches on the chorus incorporates these atmospheric synths to bring to life these underlying drum patterns with hypnotic cohesion. Something we hear similarly on the lead single, “Baby Hello.” On the album, the synth layers convey a sense of home for him and fans alike; it makes it so you feel that it’s a continuation but also an accompanying album that expresses the more subdued nature, like the album cover, which shows an astronaut chilling at a beach on the moon, as opposed to the more colorful and chromatic album cover of Saturno. It’s not trying to put forth a vibe, instead allowing it to flow with consistency that even some of the more spartan notes aren’t as potent, like on “Inquieto,” which is a little more standard to my palette and possibly to you. But it isn’t an overall poor song, as Rauw delivers on the vocal front similar to “Al Callao’,” and some minor bases for productions to build off of. However, he’s keeping it futuristic but not as heavy-loaded. Fortunately, it ends on a massive high note with “Baby Hello,” which he released as a Bizarrap video two weeks ago.

There is no denying I enjoyed Playa Saturno more than Saturno, mainly due to its use of futurism as an aesthetic to coat many of these tenacious reggaeton beats. The melodies and performances are potent, keeping you steady flowing from beginning to end without a stopgap. Much of it is thanks to its wonderfully tight runtime of 45 minutes, which is rare these days for reggaeton albums. Whether you’re new to his music or not, there is no way there won’t be many songs hitting constant rotation all summer long; I know I’ll be stuck with it on a loop many times. And don’t be alarmed if you hear the music at the club and the dancing becomes infection; it’s just one of those albums that does it all – crisp writing in the verses and exquisite production.