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Juliana Gattas, 'Maquillada en la cama'

After two decades singing for the Argentine electro-pop band Miranda!, Juliana Gattas' debut outing as a solo artist is a camp life crisis. Out at some club, dancing to nothing in particular, some guy cozies up to the singer and asks why she's so made up? Her first impulse is to balk, but then the question truly hits home: Is she actually expressing herself or is her own face a kind of glamorous mask?

Over a slinky disco beat galvanized by dramatic string arrangements, Gattas weighs the dilemma: To be emotionally naked or impermeable-but-chic. Just then the track turns noirish and arrives at a truly stunning couplet: "Quiero que sepas quién soy a la mañana siguiente, amor / Ya ni sé quién soy yo (¿Quién soy yo?)" [I want you to know how I am in the morning, my love / Yet I don't know who I am (Who am I?)"]. It's a compact serving of psychodrama with a flawless exterior unsettled by Gattas' doubt.

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Harry Tafoya