ED MAVERICK RELEASES DEBUT ALBUM

20 year old Mexican singer-songwriter Ed Maverick has released his long-awaited debut album 'eduardo.' The album is accompanied with the official video for the new single "Niño" featuring Mexican rapper Muelas De Gallo.

Ed Maverick is in a state of transition. One of growth and struggle, loss and learning, intrigue for what lies ahead and nostalgia for what’s no longer as it used to be. Sometimes he feels as if he’s stuck in a loop, expecting things to change or improve, only to feel disappointed when they don’t.

This sounds eerily familiar and relatable, perhaps for everyone, as we grapple with our anxiety and yearn for something better following the jarring dislocation of the Covid-19 pandemic. And while the budding star didn’t record his debut album 'eduardo' with the pandemic in mind, the somber, melancholy feel of his first LP certainly feels recognizable, relevant and timely.

“I made this album during a phase when I felt like I was falling into the same problems, as if they were on loop,” Ed Maverick says from his home in Delicias, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. “A lot of this album is about recognizing that there are loops that have to be broken, and that you can’t just stay where you are and expect them to change.”

It’s easy to understand why transition weighs heavy on Ed Maverick’s mind. In a little more than two years’ time, his success, career and fame have proliferated. His first single “Fuentes de Ortiz,” released in 2019, has been streamed more than 400 million times, while other hits, such as “Acurrucar,” have topped 125 million streams. As just a teenager, he opened for The National in 2019 and was slated to play both at Coachella and Lollapalooza Chicago in 2020.

In his debut album 'eduardo,' Ed Maverick delves into the emotional guts of this personal evolution. The candor and vulnerability in his lyrics are as if he is providing fans with audio excerpts of his diary, using lulling guitar riffs and a mournful, baritone voice to bring listeners with him through the cathartic process of unpacking these struggles with change.

Originally intended for release last year, the album opens with “Hola, cómo estás,” an earworm that repeats Spanish’s most common greeting in a doleful tone as if said to an ex-lover during an unexpected encounter. There is a sense of longing and openness in the vocals, which set a wistful mood for the first few tracks on the album. Something is unresolved. Something still hurts. There is remorse for something gone wrong, something that didn’t go as planned.

The album, as Ed Maverick explains, contains two parts and can be listened to on loop, a nod to the idea that repeated missteps, while painful, are at times required to propel us forward.

“In the first few songs, I talk about times that I could have been more responsible in certain relationships and how to learn from those experiences,” he says. “Through music and this album, I was able to express and deal with those feelings and, by doing so, make progress in getting over them.”

The following tracks – “Ensenada,” “Mantra I” and “Mantra II” – build upon the foundation of “Hola, cómo estás” and the artist’s ruminations about former relationships and previous missteps. In “Ensenada,” he reflects on travels with friends, asking “How happy was I” (¿Qué feliz fui) (and pleads for someone not to leave), a sentiment repeated in the subdued hum of “Mantra I.”

In “Mantra I,” Ed Maverick teamed up with Mexican artist Andrés Jaime, better known as Wet Baes, to record the ethereal track that marks a first transition in the album.

“Ed and I met up in the studio to record and produce ‘Mantra’ and it was really a cool, magical experience where everything flowed,” Wet Baes said. “We produced something that we were both happy with and it feels like a very sincere moment on the album. It is really a collage of sounds that creates an essence that is distinct from the other songs on the album.”

‘Mantra’ gives way to the album’s fourth track, “Mantra II,” where Ed Maverick is fully exposed and vulnerable, questioning aloud about what will become of him now that he’s lost someone he understands wasn’t right for him (Me haces mal, yo solo te quiero a ti). The vocals rise and are fuller, richer and rife with range that spans from melodic cooing to a gravely growl.

Though on “Contenta,” the album’s fifth track, Ed Maverick seems to be coming to terms with loss, mistakes, and the understanding that wallowing in regret impedes progress. “Contenta” is more upbeat as he seems to accept that elements of the world he once knew – adolescence, his hometown, former romances – are gone or have transformed into different versions of what they once were.

Perhaps the heart of the album is found on “Niño,” where Ed Maverick appears to confront, accept and move beyond the angst of past errors. Niño opens with the line “life is a beast that is slowly killing me and I don’t know what’s going to happen.” And, at the two-minute mark of the song, the album pivots entirely and is marked, fittingly, by the sound of a door closing.

Seconds later, Mexican rapper Muelas de Gallo bursts onto the track, sympathizing with and consoling Ed Maverick, encouraging him to accept pain and move on.

The album closes with a continuation of this theme, as Ed Maverick works through his nostalgia, accepting that pain and loss are constants that can be used for growth. The final track “Nos Queda Mucho Dolor Por Recorrer,” (There’s still a lot of pain for us to go through”), is a perfect cherry on top of the soulful album that leaves listeners wanting more.

‘Nos Queda Mucho Dolor Por Recorrer,’ which has already been streamed more than 10 million times since it’s release last summer, was written with Daniel Quién, a young, poignant Mexican singer and close friend of Ed Maverick. Rife with memorable lyrics, such as “I’m a child dressed up in layers of mature bark” (“Soy un niño disfrazado con capas de corteza madura”) and “I just wanted to be one of the guys from Los Plebes del Rancho". (Yo solo quería ser uno en los Plebes del Rancho), Daniel Quién says the song alludes to both artists going through something similar: the end of their childhoods and the discomfort of transforming into new, more mature versions of themselves.

Press Release courtesy of Paul Dryden