Recorded at home in her apartment in Queens, Santa Elena is the debut full length from Bianca Bibiloni, who records her dark dreamy ether-pop under the name of Ala Muerte. Some of you might remember that 3" CD-R that Ala Muerte released with Max Bondi on Public Guilt a while back, a beautiful little slab of blissed-out, crumbling metallic dreampop that knocked me out of my seat when it came out. Been looking forward to hearing some more music from Ala Muerte ever since, and J.R. over at Public Guilt has followed up that 3" CD-R with her first full length, a ten song disc of hazy, surreal melodies that drift like a heavy morning fog through vocal-heavy arrangements and meditative music formed by spare bass and guitar riffs, viola, collages of field recordings, recorder, a ten-string Puerto Rican guitar called a Cuatro, hints of almost imperceptible percussion (at least until the very last track), and dark sheets of airy synthesizer, ambient drone and heavy distorted guitar. Ala Muerte's vocals are layered and ghostly, and the lyrics are often blurred and indiscernable beneath the near formless singing that gives the music an ethereal, haunting sound somewhat similiar to Cocteau Twins, a kind of dreamy slow-core infused with currents of dark folk and delicate dark ambience. Many of the songs on Santa Elena also remind me of what Swans were doing on their later albums, mixing together ominous sounding recordings of urban life and background noise with spare acoustic guitar strum and Bianca's moving vocals. Then the last song "Fireweed" appears, starting out with Bianca singing a fragile little melody over minimal guitar, her vocals and the guitars building in layers and growing in power and volume, then drums come in a few minutes in, a huge, blown-out beat bashing away in the background and joined by crushing distorted guitars, and the song turns into sweeping, crushing noise-pop that totally blows me away, like hearing some old K Records band gone heavy and majestic. Wow! The disc comes in nice full color gatefold packaging with a full color lyric booklet. Recommended.