‘Ale Hop & Laura Robles’

Alejandra Cárdenas, better known as Ale Hop, and Laura Robles both grew up in Lima (Peru), but they only got to know each other in Berlin, where the two musicians live. It turned out to be a fruitful encounter, as their joint debut album Agua Dulce from 2023 proves, which is named after the beach where they spent their youth. The traditional rhythms of their birthplace are deconstructed and electronically amplified into a high-voltage performance full of tension. An electronic variant of the cajón, a percussion instrument that Black slaves used to make from wooden fruit boxes, lies at the heart of their work. Synthesizers and electric guitars mutate this Peruvian dance music even further into nostalgic textures. “Nothing short of astonishing,” according to The Wire!