As tourists celebrate the high-end vintage shops, the evocative street art and chic eateries of Roma Norte, one of Mexico City’s trendiest neighborhoods, Mariana de Miguel can’t help but resent its overcrowded nature. Instead of avoiding it altogether, the singer-songwriter, better known as Girl Ultra, frequently faces the streets’ madness to reach what she calls her “oasis” — a small studio atop one of the area’s artist compounds.
Making her way to the building’s sixth floor, the annoyance and disdain of arriving fades away as she retreats into the petite recording booth with an outdoor terrace. As Girl Ultra’s home base, it’s the space where the 28-year-old first settled into her slew of new age sounds and continues to scratch her itch for experimentation. Rooted in her dreaded trek to the beloved studio, the Mexico City-born musician learned to embrace duality and overcome self-judgment through the making of her most recent EP “Blush.”
“I was fearless. I was creating things I had always wanted to and if I didn’t like it, I was unafraid of throwing it away,” said De Miguel. “It felt like a kid’s playground. And I finally had all the toys. With ‘Blush,’ I felt free.”
A few months after its release, De Miguel stops in Los Angeles on a breezy September afternoon to celebrate the EP’s long-awaited vinyl release.
Surrounded by downtown’s towering warehouses and high-end retailers, I spot her from across the Arts District shopping center, Row DTLA. Wearing a loose-fitting leather jacket and a black miniskirt, she walks over with eagerness in her stride. Keen to get her hands on a “Blush” vinyl, it’s the first time she’s seeing a physical version of the project, initially released in July. Ahead of a record signing at In Sheep’s Clothing, she tells me about the close attachment she will always feel with her work, no matter how much time has passed.
“It’s all cyclical. It feels like giving birth to a baby that’s never gonna be yours again,” De Miguel said. “You just have to hope it grows into a great person.”
Mariana de Miguel celebrates the vinyl release of her “Blush” EP.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)
With three albums (“Adios,” “Nuevos Aires” and “El Sur”) and two EPs dating back to 2017, the singer admits that she often gets stuck in a pessimistic cycle when making music. Feeling like she isn’t good enough or that her sound isn’t representative of who she is, she says these ups and downs are like “falling in and out of love.” After the 2022 release of “El Sur” — the project she describes as “Blush’s” more-restrained older sister — she hit a low point in the cycle where everything she made faced harsh self-judgment. It wasn’t until March 2023, when she began writing “Blush,” that she broke through.
“I used to push my songs until they were good enough instead of just allowing them to be good from the beginning. [With ‘Blush,’] I tried letting go of a lot of s—. I was really making amends with myself, with the past and what I’ve done so far as a musician,” De Miguel said. “I just learned to have fun again and was very in love with music this time around.”
Treating her EPs and albums with the same attention to detail, “Blush” stands as a short-winded seven-track exploration of sorrow, femininity and fleeting love. Instead of telling these stories in an expected stripped-back acoustic fashion, she instead juxtaposes these heartfelt vignettes with the electronic sounds of hyperpop, garage beats and full-fledged club anthems. Tracks like “guapa” and “rimel,” exist as raunchy cyber-powered tunes with pop flairs while songs like “blu” and “5to elemento” bridge the gap between an early 2000s indie influence and a disruptive jungle production style.
Preparing for the record signing portion of the event, she sits in front of a wall stacked, top to bottom, with “Blush” records. The EP’s cover is a close-up image of De Miguel — she has a dead-pan look in her eyes, a burning cigarette in between her lips and unnaturally bright, pink cheeks. Driven by the emotions makeup can emphasize, the singer set out to reconcile the feminine pressures she has faced through her lyricism.
“I’m a simple girl and I like smudgy makeup. It’s something that’s part of my character. I don’t like perfect s—, especially when it comes to my music and my life,” De Miguel said. “My songwriting reflects my way of living and I wanted to make sure ‘Blush’ matched those emotions.”
Mariana de Miguel poses for a photo with fans Zulema Martinez, right, Janira Hernandez, left, and Mia Cucufate, back left, in between signing vinyls.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)
As the release party begins, fans slowly start to trickle in — appearing hesitant and a tad starstruck. Napo Pineda, 21, and Daniel Moreno, 24, arrive in matching Girl Ultra T-shirts and are quick to join the forming line. After getting their records signed and staging an impromptu photo shoot with the singer, they share that Girl Ultra’s music is one of the first things that brought them together as a couple.
“Her music is so relatable in a way that you can’t find in other artists,” Moreno said. “Her distinct sound shows how diverse our wants as Latinos are when it comes to music.”
Pineda agrees with his boyfriend’s point, adding, “There’s such a wide spectrum of Latinos making music, and we usually find it in Puerto Ricans like Young Miko or Colombians like Karol G and Kali Uchis, but it’s just so cool to have Girl Ultra as our Mexican pop girl.”
As De Miguel matures as a musician, her desire to be genre-less remains vital to Girl Ultra’s future. After a few years of DJing under the superhero-inspired stage name, De Miguel introduced herself as an alternative R&B artist on her debut EP, “Boys.” As an emo girl at heart with a deep-rooted appreciation for salsa and cumbia, her fusion of Mexican R&B quickly progressed into a hodgepodge of successfully synced influences. Raised by a rock-obsessed father and a mother with a soft spot for cheesy romantic hits, she blames her family’s miscellaneous music taste and the variety of Mexico City’s local radio stations for her need to venture beyond one genre.
Fan holds signed vinyl records of Girl Ultra’s new record “Blush.”
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)
Often morphing between releases, she says she is very grateful to have developed the character of Girl Ultra to lean on during these sonic shifts.
“I allow myself to change as much as my music,” De Miguel said. “When I think of my relationship to Girl Ultra, I think of Mariana, myself, as the girl that lives and collects information. And then Girl Ultra is the one that processes and makes something out of it.”
Over the years, her discography has had moments of bedroom pop, soft punk and deep house. She says that performing her eclectic mix presents a new world of challenges. Equating her set to riding a roller coaster, her favorite part of touring is seeing how different people react to the constant change in moods and sounds.
“I’m a sucker for uptempo. With the transitions of R&B to club music, my shows have become a beautiful blender. Everything always ends up coming together well in the end,” De Miguel said.
Girl Ultra is currently on tour with Chromeo and the Midnight with a few headline shows sprinkled in between dates. She will headline the Echoplex in Los Angeles on Oct. 24.
Embracing the nuances of heartbreak, “Blush” allowed De Miguel to expand her sonic boundaries like never before. But in the end, she always comes back to one sentiment.
“We all must remember we are just sad, horny girlies,” De Miguel said before heading off to sign more records. “That’s it.”