[Cover photo credit to Juan Francisco Sanchez]
Uruguay-born songwriter Juan Wauters has announced his forthcoming album, Wandering Rebel, out June 2nd, 2023 via Captured Tracks. The album features many familiar collaborators like Frankie Cosmos, Y La Bamba, and Zoe Gotusso, who sings on his first single “Milanesa al Pan.” Much like this album as a whole, “Milanesa al Pan” is anchored in Wauters’ Latin-influenced Indie Folk. Its accompanying video was animated by Dante Zaballa.
Juan Wauters says:
“Milanesa al Pan” was written in Cabo Polonio, Uruguay in December 2020. I had recently left NYC and wanted to do some songwriting. I had access to a place in Cabo Polonio for a few weeks and I thought it would be a great setting to write some music. This town is very remote: behind sand dunes, on the tip of a peninsula into the ocean. There’s no electricity or running water there, so there were no distractions but nature and the place itself. This particular song describes a day in which I was expecting a visit, the following day, from my beloved girlfriend. The planning for the visit and the emotions around the upcoming encounter are described in the song. The energy and the rhythm of the song are uplifting because I felt something magical was about to happen.
As a touring musician and multinational citizen, transience had always come naturally to Wauters. Circumstances, however, recently prompted him to reconsider the benefits of staying in one place.
As he adds:
During COVID I discovered that I like stability. But the world still sees me as a wandering rebel.
For a brief period during the writing process of the new album, Wauters spent a month alone in a remote Uruguayan beach town, armed with only an iPad (which he charged using a solar panel) and his thoughts. In the end, only one song from this stint made it onto Wandering Rebel (“Mensaje Codificado”), but the album shares this vantage point: “an artist, back in his home country, looking out at the world and considering the life that’s led him there.”
Tracklisting:
1. Eloping
2. Milanesa al Pan (ft. Zoe Gotusso)
3. Nube Negra (ft. Y La Bamba)
4. Amor, Amor
5. Modus Operandi (ft. Frankie Cosmos)
6. Bolero (ft. Super Willy K)
7. Mensaje Codificado
8. Millionaire
9. Wandering Rebel (ft. John Carroll Kirby)
10. Carriage
11. Let Loose
12. En Un Barrio De Montevideo
