It seems really fitting that Rituals of Mine was the first performance at Amatoria for the Stacks series.
When I first saw her perform 20 years ago, Rituals of Mine frontwoman Terra Lopez was one half of a duo called Kyoto Beat Orchestra. Her presence, her intensity, even her nervous, literary patter between songs, were all electrifying. Since then, Terra has shed her musical skin many times, exploring punk, pop, and soul to name a few, but the ineffable electronic sounds of EDM were always part of the journey. Then and now, she spends everything she has on stage, completely ringing her lithe-but-bombastic voice of every last decibel.
When she performed at Amatoria with members of local jazz bosses The LabRats, she was giddy with the idea of singing among the books to the point where she picked one up during her set and hugged it to her chest. A vocalist who usually paces the stage with the tenacity of an animal on the hunt, Terra found a way to careen around in the narrow space, sometimes singing face-to-face with a familiar audience member. The music follows her and seems to swell around her in colorful waves, Jacob, Joe, and Miguel have a way of locking in that as a listener, you experience as wild abandon and obsessive precision at once.
What strikes me as unique about Terra’s use of language is that she’s pulling the ropes of traditional R&B, what you might call “first -person romantic” framework that makes the genre so popular, but within it is the larger struggle to know thyself. As a queer woman, she’s grappling with who am I and who am I in relation to you? It’s an inquiry that has fueled many great books.
Before this performance, Terra shot her latest video at our good friends, Beers Books shop on R st. And after her incredible show at Amatoria, she was so taken with the idea of performing in bookstores, she decided to put a tour together.
You can see my conversation with Terra here.
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