Half Gringa

Over the course of her first two full-length releases as Half Gringa, Chicago-based singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Isabel Olive has demonstrated stunning emotional intelligence and songwriting elegance. And it has not gone unnoticed. The Chicago Reader named Half Gringa’s debut, Gruñona as among Chicago’s Best Albums of the Decade while VICE named her sophomore full-length, Force to Reckon as one of 22 Essential Albums of 2020, saying that Half Gringa specializes in “empathic and twangy songs about grief and getting stuck in your own thoughts.”

True as that may be, her third and latest album Cosmovisión represents a shift. Recorded in Chicago by veteran Califone and Iron & Wine producer Brian Deck, Cosmovisión captures Olive at her most self-possessed, addressing “mythology, mortality, and everything in between,” ideas that Olive says are “too hot to touch, too huge to hold.” Indeed, Half Gringa seems to revel in addressing what cannot be grasped or expressed so easily. Olive commonly switches between English and Spanish in her songs. It’s a tribute –– as is the band name –– to her upbringing by a Venezuelan mother and an American father in a Midwestern town.

The Ark’s Artist Spotlight Series is made possible with support from Ford Philanthropy. It is presented live, and also livestreamed on The Ark’s Facebook page.

Tonight’s show is FREE (nonperishables accepted for Food Gatherers).