Latin Roots: Alejandro y María Laura

The married singer-songwriters Alejandro Rivas and María Laura Bustamante met in college but didn't start making music together as Alejandro y María Laura until five years later, in 2009. Their different interests — Rivas was in a Led Zeppelin cover band and Bustamante studied theatre — somehow combined into the sophisticated soft-pop of their 2011 debut, Paracaídas. The album went top-10 in Peru, their home country, but Rivas says that might not have been on the strength of their music alone. "Most of the press in Peru were talking about us being a couple and really cute, not about the songs, I guess, and the artwork of the album," he says in this interview. "And we thought they missed the point completely, you know."

In this session, Alejandro y María Laura play songs from their latest record, 2013's Fiesta Para Los Muertos, and some new music onstage at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia. Listen to the duo's complete album on Spotify.

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