Sparklmami’s debut album started from an unusual place: a decade of relative silence. Born Ariella Granados and raised in Texas, she spent part of her childhood singing for a church band, then stopped entirely. “When I left church, I stopped singing for 10 years,” she told UCLA Radio. “I like to think that in those 10 years, I was researching and really figuring out what it is that I liked.” After moving to Chicago for college, Granados spent her 20s as a visual artist, performer, and makeup artist, all while quietly writing songs on the side. Winning an artist residency eventually pulled her back to the stage, and to recording.
The result of this path is her debut album, in this body—a joyous, lush mix of jazz fusion, Brazilian funk, and bolero-infused vocals, paired with freewheeling experimentations from her band. Trumpet solos, pitch-bent synths, and theatrical sighs all bend the rules just so, creating an exuberant atmosphere for the record’s taut, jubilant 24 minutes.
Granados’ background as a visual and performance artist leaves its mark throughout. The video for opener “no te vayas” is kitschy and gleefully comedic—playful costumes, bold makeup, a party atmosphere—paired with lyrics that invite the listener to a place where “anything is possible/Your dreams come alive, and your fantasies too.” Her humor extends to the album artwork, a family-portrait style photograph where she sports cartoonishly oversized gloves. But eventually, the party fades, and the album turns inward. “Eres bien vaga” (“You are so lazy”), she snarls on “vaga.” On “fajas,” she pairs childhood memories with shifting percussion, twinkly keyboards, and flourishes of electronic soul. And on the title track, she speaks of feeling whole: anchored by spare, celestial keys, it’s a relaxed, gorgeous song that reconciles family history with one’s own place in the world.
in this body combines elements of Brazilian jazz, disco, and Indian pop, drawing in part on Granados’ Mexican and Indian heritage: layered harmonies, propulsive breaks, and bright stabs of saxophone. But the album’s modern R&B production prevents it from falling into nostalgia. Framing Granados’ vibrant, birdlike voice against polished rhythms, in this body manages to be both delicate and forward-looking. In songs like “fajas” and “running,” swinging bass, saxophone, and keys drift into interludes that float just far enough to earn their return. Wordless vocals, funky guitar licks, and sun-warped textures give the sound a rough warmth—announcing a band comfortable with risks but never reckless, widening the record’s world without unsettling it.
The album’s second half steals the show. Deep into the kind of heartache that Latin music knows best, “quisiera”—a farewell and a love letter to Granados’ mom—is a psychedelic, salsa-inspired ballad that highlights Granados’ voice and ability as a composer. Here, her grief is cradled by lo-fi fuzz and limber, distant horns. Before allowing the melancholy mood to settle, “penso en voce” picks the energy right back up. Energetic, breath-driven vocalizations, punctuated by bells, jump into a MPB groove—the hiss of high hats, cuíca, and chimes balanced against Granados’ sky-reaching sighs.
When in this body stumbles, it’s only briefly. There’s some repetition in the arrangements and tempos on the album’s first half, and one-minute closer “it was 5am” feels as if it runs out of momentum. But it hardly matters. When Granados calmly sings, “In this body, I’m my own,” on the closing track, her self-knowledge rings true. Those 10 years she spent not singing weren’t lost time—they all led to this.
