María del Pilar (MDP) has made quite a journey since her last album, Pilar … Read Full Bio ↴María del Pilar (MDP) has made quite a journey since her last album, Pilar Díaz. The former Los Abandoned front woman, on a suggestion from Pilar Diaz producer Gabrial McNair (No Doubt), decided to use her birth name for her solo project. Thus María del Pilar, front and center, was ready for the spotlight. Focusing on the versatility of her vocal range, the one-time voice of the Latin alternative youth movement is now a full- fledged woman and unafraid to sing about it.

It was an evolution born from a trip to her native Chile when, after life’s ups and downs had her momentarily stunned, she went back to what matters most—the music.

Immersing herself in Chile’s cultural scene, the music, clubs, folklore, friends and family, she began writing the album that would become the first installment of Songs & Canciones—a musical trilogy born of a newfound prolificacy. The result is a sensual vocal showcase that celebrates her arrival into divahood.

“It’s a very fruitful time right now which is the complete opposite of what I was experiencing before,” MDP says. “There’s so much material I want to write, that I want to have these albums come out consecutively. Not in a typical two-year album release cycle.”

The bilingual album is produced by Chilean DJ, Vicente Sanfuentes, (Francisca Valenzuela, Gepe, Matias Aguayo). It features friends from the Latin alternative music scene in Chile and the U.S. including a duet with Chilean, indie superstar Gepe on the track "Huaso de Los Angelitos,” a tribute to María del Pilar’s folk musician father who earned money for her piano lessons singing at weddings dressed as a Huaso (Chilean cowboy).

The radio-friendly “En el Dancefloor,” co-produced by Filip Nikolic (Poolside, Bonde de Role), is a rhythmic head-bobber about the trials of searching for love on the dancefloor sung in MDP’s signature Spanglish style.

“It’s that journey of frustration you take when you can’t find love,” she says of the lyrics. “It’s not happening or it’s gone. It feels like love has completely left you behind. And it’s like, okay, before I can find love outside of myself, I have to find it within me.”

The driving track, “Motivation,” written with Sanfuentes, is the first video to be released from the album. Director Mark “Cosmo” Segurson created a fantasy world in which María del Pilar tries on four alter egos in an attempt to locate her muse.

“There’s the garden-mother/earth-goddess watering her plants, the chain-smoking, fur- wearing diva, speeding through Las Vegas in her car, and the spy sneaking up a tree to a secret room through the elevator,” MDP says. “Once you get up the tree, you have this character that represents finding the motivation. That’s why you see the goddess watering the tree and the character. The tree representing motivation, life, growth and creativity.”

MDP’s new sound is already garnering attention on LA’s alternative taste-making radio station KCRW where DJ Travis Holcombe can be heard playing the English-language track “High Heels”—a song about the hijinks that can ensue from a good pair of pumps.

MDP also showed up in LA Weekly’s People Issue of 2012, which was no surprise to Latin alternative fans that know her sound from documentary films and episodes of NBC’s Parenthood. “[She] helps anchor Los Angeles' Latin alternative music scene,” writer Erica Phillips notes. As María del Pilar, she’ll usher in a whole new era.