Photo: Sofía Ruesga

Lorena Quintanilla, of Mexican duo Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, has announced the release of her second album under the moniker J. Zunz. Entitled Hibiscus, the album follows a period of “personal crisis inside and political crisis outside” and sees her taking a more minimal approach, partly influenced by a John Cage biography. “I remember I was reading a biography of John Cage and that book detonated something in me,” explained Quintanilla, adding: “The author was referring to the influence of Buddhism and meditation, and modern artists like Sonia Delaunay, Lucio Fontana, Julio Le Parc, Duchamp, futurism. I was very charged with ideas.”

Following the lead single ‘Y’, J. Zunz has shared an entrancing new track, ‘Four Women And Darkness’, and it comes with an accompanying video. She described the inspiration behind it:

“‘Four Women And Darkness’ is a story from my grandmother’s childhood. She told me that once during wartime in México in the late 1920’s, she and her sisters were hidden by her grandmother in a little, cold secret room. She hid them there because the militia wanted to search the house. Soldiers used to look for women or girls to rape them or to kidnap them. My grandmother and her sisters stayed there in the dark room for hours until the soldiers left.

I asked four close friends of mine to express their own darkness. They all come from different cities and backgrounds. I instructed them with some movements remarking and reassuring the limits of our bodies, which for years have belonged to everyone but us.”

With a dark and dramatic feeling to it, the haunting and hypnotic ‘Four Women And Darkness’ incites a trance-like state. Quintanilla co-directed the video with John O’Carroll. Here it is.

Hibiscus is out on August 21st through Rocket Recordings