Today, Adrian Quesada releases Jaguar Sound. Out now on all streaming platforms and on limited edition blue vinyl record, the twelve-track collection marks the second new album of the year from the Grammy-winning guitarist, producer and Black Pumas co-founder, further showcasing his singular and signature ability to build a bridge between seemingly disparate worlds of music. Steeped in a heady fusion of hip-hop, psychedelic soul and the opulent orchestration of Italian film scores from the 1970s, the LP draws inspiration from life during the first few isolated months of the pandemic, as well as his experience growing up on the border of multiple countries, cultures and languages. Featuring a special appearance from Ikebe Shakedown, as well as harp by Mary Lattimore, Neal Francis on piano, keys from David Garza and an array of strings, horns and percussion, Jaguar Sound was produced, written, engineered, mixed and largely performed by Adrian Quesada at his own Electric Deluxe studio in Austin, TX.

Originally conceived during the onset of the COVID-19 lockdown, Jaguar Sound is an instrumental opus filled with musical themes, motifs and an amalgamation of genres that reflect a particular time, emotion and personal set of obsessions in Adrian Quesada’s life. “I just rode my bike every single day and listened to The Alchemist,” he says. “I’d come back home and crank out beats. Film scores and 1970s library music have always played a big part in my musical language as they paint a cinematic picture without words and that is very much something I draw influence from. It eventually got to the point where I wanted to bring them to life in my own way and turn them into songs. I started setting some aside that matched thematically, and I began recording live instrumentation. I find as I get older that sometimes I feel a responsibility to show the possibility to build bridges and coexist between different worlds. I want someone to discover something they normally wouldn’t entertain.”

Jaguar Sound arrives on the heels of Adrian Quesada’s Boleros Psicodélicos LP, which dropped earlier in 2022 and has since led him to performances for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, star-studded sets for the Austin City Limits music festival and PBS program, a Kennedy Center celebration for the Hispanic Heritage Foundation and beyond. A sweeping tribute to his longtime love for the golden age of Latin American balada music, Boleros Psicodélicos saw Adrian Quesada unite an international community of collaborators such as Angelica Garcia, Gabriel Garzón-Montano, Gaby Moreno, Girl Ultra, iLe, Marc Ribot, Money Mark, Tita and numerous others, garnering praise from Rolling Stone, NPR Music, Variety and more. “It is difficult to recreate the magic of a balada, a song of longing popular in the 1970s that defined a generation in Latin America,” says The New York Times. “Adrian Quesada manages to harness the genre’s power.”