“Lover Is a Day” — Cuco
“It’s cool to be in your feelings and it’s cool to be sad and it’s cool to feel all of these things…” says 19-year-old Oman Banos — aka Cuco — who is drenching L.A. stages in dreamy waves of organ oscillation. This newcomer to the West Coast music scene is in good company with the likes of other young reverb-filled modern crooners like Steve Lacy and Kevin Abstract from Brockhampton.
This young Chicano artist sings wistful double-tracked songs about first love and young lust; his fan-base started with a high concentration of young Latina fans, but now with management and the music industry’s ear by his side, he is branching out and acquiring more fans with each and every show. Cuco is one of many artists of color bucking the traditional music system in lieu of recording, producing and distributing their music themselves. With a rising feeling of distrust towards an ever-changing music industry, coupled with the ease and accessibility of self-recording, a young talent like Cuco doesn’t need “The Man” to put out a good, lush record.
This video is a sepia-covered throwback to the West Coast of days past. A simple love story between a troubled bad boy and the woman who loves him. It takes a whopping seven minutes to let this story to play out on a screen and in your ears. I like the video because it gives you just enough plot structure to let your imagination fill in the blanks. It seems almost like scenes from the Biker B-movies like Satan’s Sadists (1969) or Angels from Hell (1998), complete with shaky close-up zoom shots. It’s a mellow tune to wrap up the week with in my opinion.
Try it on for size.
— Dave Emmert
