© 2024 WEMU
Serving Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, MI
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
School Closing Information

Van Dyke Parks Lifts Gaby Moreno's Voice On Spectacular '¡Spangled!'

Van Dyke Parks, left, and Gaby Moreno check in with each other about their new album <em>Spangle</em>.
Courtesy of the artist
Van Dyke Parks, left, and Gaby Moreno check in with each other about their new album Spangle.

Gaby Moreno's ¡Spangled! is a collaboration with Van Dyke Parks, a music arranger who has worked from everyone from The Beach Boys to U2 to Skrillex. His job is to arrange the little black dots on a music manuscript page into sounds from strings, horns and voices that add texture and context to the songs.

Parks' arrangements on ¡Spangled! lift Moreno's voice into a place that will delight and surprise her long-time fans as well as impress those who are just discovering her.

They stopped by the Alt.Latino West Coast Satellite Nerve Center for a deep dive into their unlikely collaboration and, of course, some laughs.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Felix Contreras is co-creator and host of Alt.Latino, NPR's pioneering radio show and podcast celebrating Latin music and culture since 2010.