St. Croix music fans have had several opportunities this week to catch Lourdes & The Switch, the popular St. Thomas-based band whose stripped-down touring duo has been performing a series of early summer shows across the island.
The version of the band visiting St. Croix is not the full four-piece ensemble but a pared-down duo consisting of Lourdes Aquila on guitar and vocals and Nathan McGlone on bass. The pair has been making appearances at several popular island venues, including Blues Backyard Barbecue on Wednesday, Brew St. Croix on Thursday, Ruff Start Bar on Friday, Leatherback Brewing Co. on Saturday and Cheeseburgers in Paradise on Sunday.
The duo performed Friday night in the courtyard at Ruff Start in Frederiksted, where they embroidered the soft, balmy June air with their infectious blend of soulful pop and indie rock delivered with a distinctly feel-good island vibe. From their perch on a low terrace in front of a weathered brick wall festooned with wayward ferns, the duo churned through a robust first-set selection of popular covers as the evening darkened and a sizable crowd gradually coalesced in the courtyard to sway and sing along.
What immediately strikes even the casual listener is the audacious range and sheer eclecticism of the duo’s musical choices and the facility they show on their instruments as they navigate from a Fats Waller jazz standard written a century ago to an Alanis Morissette pop tune from the 1990s, all within the space of five minutes. If Waller and Morissette embody the proverbial bookends of their genre-defying, boundary-crossing and conspicuously eclectic repertoire, their kaleidoscopic catalog also includes nearly everything in between.
Punctuated briefly by the charismatic duo’s lively inter-song banter and easy rapport with the crowd, the evening included several sets of foot-tapping covers by artists such as Norah Jones, Jason Mraz, Ani DiFranco, Gillian Welch, Ella Fitzgerald, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Billie Eilish, Stevie Nicks and The Cranberries. As a duo, the pair seems to have the ability to filter the compositions of other artists through their own unique sensibilities so that the songs feel like interpretations of, or even collaborations with, the originals.
Behind her signature olive-green Fender Acoustasonic Jazzmaster guitar, Lourdes is perpetually in motion and beaming broadly, broadcasting an irrepressible enthusiasm for the music. Born and raised in the Philippines in a musical family in which everyone played at least one instrument, Lourdes took up the guitar at age 8. Today, her complex polyrhythms and sophisticated fingerpicking patterns suggest both a natural gift for the instrument and reflect her many years of experience performing on it. Between songs, she frequently shuttles her capo up and down the neck of her guitar in response to the persistently shifting key centers of their wide-ranging catalog.
Perhaps even more impressive than her natural prowess on the guitar, Lourdes’ lilting, conversational singing voice and considerable vocal range seem perfectly suited to the breadth of the duo’s catalog. Meanwhile, Nathan, whose Irish origins surface only subtly in an attenuated accent when he addresses the crowd between songs, seems to take equal pleasure in wielding a five-string bass that provides the gravity and counterpoint to anchor everything Lourdes does in the higher registers.
Nathan’s fluidity and inventiveness on the instrument, combined with the seamless interplay between his bass work and Lourdes’ vocals and guitar, give the duo the feel of a well-rounded and integrated collaboration. The two seem to know their material well enough and be comfortable enough with it that they are free to take chances, improvise and chase those singular moments of magic that are particular to live music.
