Costa Rican American singer/composer/writer/visual artist/performance artist Dorian Wood fits comfortably in no box. They explore their sexuality, their native Los Angeles, and their Latin American heritage in their work, but they make each part of their vision, rather than the centerpieces. The music they make is informed by contemporary classical, singer/songwriter pop, and experimental music, but there’s no genre that can hold them.
Canto De Todes, Wood’s tenth album, is itself a distillation, condensing the music of a twelve-hour performance piece that they’ve toured since 2023. Using voices, guitar, and multiple celli, the installation covers Wood’s Costa Rican ancestry on the whimsical vocal round “Mapas,” describes an L.A. tornado they experienced as a child in the near a cappella “Nubenegra,” and lets a goddess ascend to her most vengeful self in the strangely sedate “Brown Dove (The End).” Wood also challenges the status quo – both personal and national – on the gentle “Honey,” the forceful “Girasoles,” and the epic “Anonas.” Occasional interludes by cello quartet cleanse the palette before the next track.
One suspects that the best exposure we can have with Canto De Todes is to experience it live with the installation. But we can still spend time with the album and let our minds turn Wood’s artistic vision into our own imagination.
