ALBUM REVIEW
Weekly Alibi
"Singer-songwriter Lara Manzanares won best album honors at this year's New Mexico Music Awards for her album Land Baby. Here she carries out her mission with focus and drive, employing a voice both powerful and emotive, backed by instrumental conceits that reflect her deep, desert-borne connection to la tierra in Nuevo Mexico. From simple constructions like "Census Song" to more fleshed out produce such as "Rapunzel," Manzanares' voice shimmers, shines and soothes. Her backing band is top-notch too; the recording is as shockingly clear as a summer, star-strewn night out in the wilderness. (...) ... her range is magnificent and her overall tone as pure as the land itself."
– August March | The Weekly Alibi, June 28 2018
ALBUM REVIEW
TheNextGig.nl
(Translated from Dutch):
"In addition to being very beautiful and very varied with both folk and Spanish-language songs, Lara Manzanares's new album Land Baby is also particularly relevant to the discussion on migration. (...) Lara Manzanares proves herself to be a strong singer with beautiful light-footedness and melancholy in her voice. (...) Wonderful is the melancholic 'Loss' and the rocking sixties-like 'Love in the City'. A highlight is 'Borderlands', which is a sensitive song, with beautiful trumpet and accordion work by Rothschild. (...) ... an album as a plea for a bridge and against a wall."
– Richard Wagenaar | TheNextGig.nl
Full Review in Dutch:
“Music is Alive & Well in ABQ”
Albuquerque the Magazine
“…Building on the attention earned with her debut album, Land Baby— winner of the New Mexico Music Award for Best Album in 2018—Manzanares took hold of her career in 2019, playing with a variety of different musicians in a variety of genres and learning how to lead a band. Being ‘open to uncertainty… wading into situations that you can’t engingeer,’ she says, helped fuel her growth.”
– Mel Minter | Albuquerque The Magazine, June 2020, pg. 54
“Healing Music”
Albuquerque the Magazine
“…Growing up in Tierra Amarilla in a family with a sheep-to-shawl business in Los Ojos called Tierra Wools, Manzanares is a daughter of the mountains and an accomplished weaver. Getting back to New Mexico helped ground her for an extended recovery from a debilitating illness. Settling into a little house in Corrales, Manzanares had no idea that she would be recording an award-winning album before long. “I don’t know if you believe in universal or cosmic stuff, but that’s kind of what I feel happened,” she says.”
– Mel Minter | Albuquerque The Magazine, February 2019
“Putting Her Best Foot Forward”
The Albuquerque Journal
“… It was a circuitous journey from the living room in Tierra Amarilla to Museum Hill, one that included the 2018 Album of the Year at the New Mexico Music Awards for her record “Land Baby.”
To hear Manzanares tell it, the destination was never clear. But like many other northern New Mexican stories, the tale includes encouragement from family, detours and chance meetings with helpful strangers. …”
– Monica Roman Gagnier | Albuquerque Journal, November 10 2019
"Lara Manzanares: Un Puente Musical" / "Lara Manzanares: A Musical Bridge"
Bilingual Podcast: KUNM 89.9 - Raíces
"Desde la poesía traviesa y naïf de “Lobito” al compromiso social expresado en “Borderlands”, Lara Manzanares manifiesta una profunda empatía con las gentes que -más que nunca- requieren una caricia al alma." ///// "From naughty poetry to the naive of "Lobito" her commitment to society expressed in "Borderlands", Lara Manzanares manifests a profound empathy with the people that require their soul caressed."
– Christina Baccin, KUNM Radio
Note: For licensing reasons, the full-length songs from the album that were broadcast on the air have been shortened to clips for the podcast. The live renditions, however, are included in full.
"Lara Manzanares To Debut 'Land Baby' "
Tempo Magazine
"... With 12 songs in “Land Baby,” Manzanares conveys a richness in English and Spanish that delves deeply into the heart of New Mexico’s land and people.
“Land Baby” is about movement, Manzanares states, not only physical and geographical movement, but also emotional and cultural. She says she was “raised on a ruggedly beautiful but isolated sheep ranch in Northern New Mexico, with my parents’ 1960s and ‘70s folk and rock record collection to keep me company. I grew up hearing both English and Spanish and speaking Spanglish. The stories, customs, and traditions of my childhood were rooted in the distinct culture of Northern New Mexico: A deeply complex mixture of Old-World Spanish, Mexican, Native American and Anglo-American ways of being, all held together by a deep connection to the land.”
– Tempo Magazine | Taos, NM