Miramar’s Para Siempre – Get It While It Lasts

Miramar’s Para Siempre stands out as the most noir album of recent months. The vintage Puerto Rican bolero band’s main instrument is keyboardist Marlysse Simmons-Argandoña’s tremoloing, funereal Farfisa organ, over which singers Rei Alvarez (Simmons-Argandoña’s bandmate in retro salsa powerhouse Bio Ritmo) and Laura Ann Singh harmonize lushly, against a backdrop of acoustic guitar, baby bass and drums – and that organ. The result is both completely retro and original at once, a Sam Fuller film set in San Juan, 1955. These “songs about love and anti-love” are up at the band’s bandcamp site as a name-your-price download (that means free if you’re broke).

Interestingly, the most iconic song here, Silvia Rexach’s Di Corazon is done with piano rather than organ, a stately, spacious version with spare guitar that lets the lyrics’ understated anguish speak for themselves. Rexach was reputedly about 15 or 16 when she wrote this; Alvarez and Singh vividly evoke the pain of a girl alone at night wondering whether anyone will ever care about her. The slinky Farfisa rivulets kick in on another Rexach classic, En Mis Sueños, darkly dreamy but more so musically than lyrically. They follow a brief, gorgeous organ solo by a gently spiky one from the acoustic guitar. Tomate Una Copa has a bouncy insistent “gimme a chance” vibe, with the piano and guitar carrying it, Alvarez handling the lead vocal.

Nuestro Juramento is a creepy organ waltz that evokes another retro latin band, Las Rubias Del Norte – the wounded duet vocals are viscerally intense. The best of the organ tunes is the lusciously, luridly spiraling Alma, with its wary, somewhat surreal guy-vs.girl call-and-response and tango nuevo-tinged melody. They follow that with two piano ballads, the expansive Y Etonces and the brooding, bitterly crescendoing intense title track. They close with Estatua (Te Creo), rich with restrained longing. Get this while it’s still online.

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