PREMIERE: Alex Anwandter Gets Lusty on the Range in ‘Gaucho’ Music Video

Watch out James Brown, because Alex Anwandter is vying for the title of “Hardest Working Man in Show Business.” Last year, the Chilean pop mastermind released El Diablo En El Cuerpo, his exuberant disco and house-fueled follow-up to the drab soundscapes of 2018’s Latinoamericana. Months later, he won a Latin Grammy for his production work on Julieta Venegas’ riveting Tu Historia LP, and back in March, his flair for strobing pop architecture also helmed Maquillada en la Cama, the solo debut from Miranda!’s Juliana Gattas. Now, almost exactly a year after dropping his hotly anticipated comeback record, Anwandter has announced yet another album titled Dime Precioso, slated for release on May 24. Premiering today on Remezcla, the music video for lead single “Gaucho” finds Chile’s pop prince at his most playful yet, weaving references to vintage animation, gay literary classics, and South American yeehaw tableaus.

“Gaucho” is designed as an all-around fantasy of stolen glances and libidinous barnyard behavior down in the Argentine pampas. House music thumps as the camera pans to a model clad in loose cotton garments, leather chaps, and a wide-brimmed hat under which Anwandter seductively nestles his head to whisper sweet nothings in his frontiersman’s ear. They dance in spastic, angular motion that echoes the tango, later mirrored by clips of the newly copyright-free Steamboat Willie putting the moves on his own beloved Minnie Mouse. The other notable image is the black and white clip, where Anwandter leers menacingly from under a tulle veil, evoking the judgmental, titular mother figure from Federico García Lorca’s classic play, La Casa de Bernarda Alba.

“I would say it’s about being horny in Argentina, above all other things, lol,” says Anwandter over email, adding, “’Gaucho’ is just one taste of what’s coming.”

Though Anwandter has shared few details about Dime Precioso, in a recent Instagram Q&A he described the album as less danceable than its predecessor. Be that as it may, “Guacho” is rapturous and a spiritual kindred to last year’s “Unx de Nosotroxs” with Javiera Mena; both dance floor catnip nourished by the throbbing club sounds of his current hometown, New York City. 

Will Dime Precioso pack more summer bangers or be another murky journey within? We’ll know for sure on May 24, but like Anwandter’s titular “Gaucho,” we’re surely in for a bumpy ride.