La Bien Querida

In 2007 Ana Fernandez-Villaverde drew early notice across Spain’s independent music scene after a demo she assembled with Horacio Nistal, issued under the project name La Bien Querida—an appellation that roughly means “the well-loved”—took first place in Mondo Sonoro magazine’s yearly demo contest. A contract with Elefant Records followed the next year, during which she staged several concerts while shaping the tracks that would form her first full-length release. That album, 2009’s Romancero, was produced by David Rodriguez of Beef and presented refined indie-pop songs lightly touched by flamenco, echoing the styles of Club 8, Rose Melberg, and California Snow Story. She again enlisted Rodriguez for her second album, Fiesta, which arrived in 2011. For their third project the pair pursued a different direction, fusing dark synth-pop, post-punk, and disco textures on 2012’s Ceremonia. La Bien Querida next issued the 2015 collection of three maxi-singles titled Premeditación, Nocturnidad y Alevosía before returning with the wider-ranging Fuego in 2017.