Fierce and unflinching, Argentine singer Natalia Doco returns with Hacha, an initiation rite of an album that channels the spirit of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction and rebirth. Blending dancefloor anthems with experimental incantations, the record marks a new chapter in a body of work that has, since her 2014 debut, unfolded like a series of personal rites of passage.

 

Born in Buenos Aires, Doco began her search for identity in the red earth mountains of northern Argentina, reconnecting with her Guaraní ancestry and the silenced history of her great grandmother. The landscapes and Indigenous rituals left a lasting imprint. Later, she continued her nomadic journey in Mexico, performing in clubs, bars and street festivals while immersing herself in the ecstatic pulse of traditional music and the mysticism of shamanic ceremonies.

 

Her 2017 album El Buen Gualicho, crafted with Argentine alternative figure Axel Krygier, reached toward the moon and the spirit world. Yet Doco’s spiritual quest began much earlier in the pews of Catholic and later Evangelical churches during her Buenos Aires childhood. Though shaped by the radiance of sacred song, she ultimately rejected doctrines that stigmatize and oppress women.

 

That tension gave rise to La Sagrada in 2023, a deeply spiritual exploration of the sacred feminine, motherhood and the transformative ideas of Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves, a book that became a touchstone for Doco. Music, for her, evolved into both a healing practice and a tool for empowerment.

 

Now, with Hacha, Spanish for axe, Doco sharpens her vision. Inspired by Kali, the sword wielding goddess who severs evil at its root, she steps forward liberated, ferocious and unapologetically feminist. Limiting beliefs and toxic patterns are metaphorically beheaded with biting wit. Created alongside acclaimed multi instrumentalist Lilian Mille, whose credits include Bada Bada, Oklou and Bilal Hassani, the album fractures and reshapes Latin American rhythms such as cumbia, reggaeton and cha cha into feverish yet finely wrought experimental pop.

 

Dual edged by design, Hacha also reveals Doco’s vulnerability. Singing in both Spanish and French, she confronts her contradictions and past selves in search of acceptance and inner peace. The opening track Intracha invokes Kali in a defiant incantation. On smoldering cuts like TM, Cha Cha Trap, Animal, Hacha and Juira, Bicha, which transforms a rural northern Argentine expression into a protective spell, she settles scores with abusers and bares her claws. By turns raw, romantic and feline, she embraces both love and unfiltered pleasure on BB, Faro featuring Shaga and Gatitude, a sultry duet with Johan Papaconstantino that pulses like Brazilian funk.

 

Driven by Lilian Mille’s cinematic brass, echoing the heightened drama of telenovelas, Gatita Blanca pays homage to impossible love stories in the spirit of Juan Gabriel, the late Mexican icon of heartbreak. Never one to shy away from the abyss, Doco also honors her shadows. Que Vuela faces mortality. Casa mourns the loss of home over stark piano and voice. A la Mar rises as an ode to emotional high tides and resilience.

 

“I ran from who I am, I am not what I flee, now I am new,” she intones on Portal, a vocoder laced prayer that closes the album like the final chant of a ritual, marking the end of a profoundly liberating journey.

 

With Hacha, Natalia Doco commands attention and delivers a blazing statement of female emancipation, her most powerful album to date.