Buscabulla share the official music video for “Mio”, taken off their debut album Regresa, released, this past May. Directed by the band and filmed across Puerto Rico, the opening scenes of the “Mio” video spotlight the Playuela coastline, which has been at the center of a 20-year battle between local conservation activists and encroaching tourism industry developers.

“‘Mío’ is a look outside the tourist’s gaze in Puerto Rico, with recent natural disasters, an ongoing economic crisis and now a global pandemic accelerating gentrification and foreign development,” the band explains. “It depicts the island’s picturesque landscapes in contrast with the gritty aesthetic of notorious local festivities which themselves preserve and expand our culture while existing beyond the market forces trying to erase them.” “Despite our neocolonial reality it will always be our right to assert our own dignity and self-respect. What we are claiming as ours goes beyond what money can buy. Home is even more than land, it is our culture, our people and our history with all is lights and shadows.”

Full of angst and an underlying sense of loss, the album Regresa—which means “return” or “to come back”—is a bittersweet, introspective, eye-opening journey. “The album reflects the joys of being back but it’s also melancholic,” Raquel says. “You can feel like a stranger in your own home because the island is going through very hard, weird times. Most people our age have fled. We have also changed after being away for so long.” The album, recorded in its entirety in Raquel’s and Luis Alfredo’s home studio in Puerto Rico, is an emotional roller coaster in which they face and ponder the issues affecting them and Puerto Rican society at large: the frustration at the lack of opportunities for locals while tax breaks lure rich investors, social and political instability as well as anxiety and self-doubt. For the finishing touches, the band worked with Patrick Wimberly (Chairlift, MGMT, Solange, Blood Orange) who contributed additional production and mixed the album.

Regresa calls for self-reflection, awakening and perseverance in the midst of an uncertain future. Says Raquel, “Regresa is about self-acceptance of oneself with all our imperfections, and the acceptance of being back in Puerto Rico, with all its flaws.”

Order “Mio” via Ribbon Music