Silvana Estrada

The latest album from Silvana Estrada, Vendrán Suaves Lluvias took root from a life-changing period of self-discovery, tragedy, and eventual transcendence for the globally beloved singer/songwriter. Following the release of her 2022 debut studio LP Marchita, the Mexico City-based multi-instrumentalist took off on a stratospheric rise that included winning a Latin Grammy for Best New Artist, headlining tours around the world, and earning massive acclaim from major outlets like The New York Times, Pitchfork, and Rolling Stone (who hailed her as “an artist of the past, the present, and the future”). But as she set to work on her next full-length, the Veracruz native found herself thwarted by a series of false starts and devastating personal upheaval, including the murder of her best friend in late 2022. After taking time to heal and recalibrate, Estrada decided to produce the album on her own—a daunting but wildly gratifying leap that ultimately brought even greater depth and color to her resplendent form of indie-folk.

“For a long time I felt so lost, and finally I realized that maybe I just needed softness and sweetness and a safe space to reconnect with my intuition,” says Estrada. “When I found that space again, it became clear that I was the only person who could produce this album. The entire experience was like a rebirth, where I made it through so much loss and pain and then came out the other side with a new understanding of how to face reality with grace and hope.”

With its title translating to Soft Rains Will Come (a phrase inspired by a 1918 poem by Sara Teasdale), Vendrán Suaves Lluvias expands on the gorgeously detailed sound of Marchita— Estrada’s debut release for Glassnote Records, featured on best-of-the-year lists from the likes of NPR, SPIN, and The Guardian. The latest turn in a career that’s included performing and/or recording with a diverse mix of artists (e.g., Laufey, Devendra Banhart, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and more), Vendrán Suaves Lluvias finds her working with her longtime bandmates (a group of jazz musicians featuring pianist/arranger Roberto Verástegui and drummer Alex Lozano) as well as Oscar-nominated composer Owen Pallett (Frank Ocean, The National, Lana Del Rey) and a coterie of Montreal-based musicians known for their work with the late jazz-folk luminary Lhasa de Sela. In dreaming up the album, Estrada drew from a deep well of influences encompassing everything from tropicália to Tom Waits to minimalist classical composer Arvo Pärt—slowly building a spellbinding backdrop to her soul-searching reflections on self-preservation. “This album came from asking myself how to honor my anger and create an existence that’s both truthful and beautiful,” says Estrada, who also penned every track on Vendrán Suaves Lluvias. “I’ve always felt very connected to sadness, but now I understand that anger can be an energy that motivates you to change your life for the better.”

A three-year-long saga, the making of Vendrán Suaves Lluvias began back in spring 2022, when Estrada holed up in the studio with a former collaborator immediately after completing an extensive tour in support of Marchita. “I was expecting the production process to feel free and playful, but instead it was so rigid,” she recalls. “I was putting so much pressure on myself, and it turned out to be a total disaster.” Later shelving that album, Estrada embarked on another prolonged stretch of touring (including a run of dates as support for Andrew Bird and Iron & Wine), but headed home to Mexico City after suffering a spinal-cord injury that briefly left her in a wheelchair. “To this day the doctors still don’t understand what happened, but I think it was partly my body asking for rest after pushing myself for too long,” she notes. After winning the Latin Grammy that November, Estrada’s life was thrown into chaos when her best friend and his brother were abducted and murdered in Mexico City. “I felt like nothing made sense anymore, and it took me a very long time to rewire my brain to try to accept what happened,” she says. “For the first time in years, I took a break from everything.”