We think we know what we want. The digital age has made it easier than ever for us to get it - we can search, skip, and customize to our hearts’ content. But something is lost in this exchange - without an external perspective, how can we know what we’re missing? Juan Wauters understands this. It’s why he’s such a big fan of radio - it takes some of the power out of our hands, opening us up to new sounds, new possibilities. This is the effect he sought to reproduce on his fifth album, Real Life Situations, a multifaceted ode to surrendering control and taking life as it comes. References to radio abound on its 21 tracks, and with good reason - the album spans genres, narrators, languages, and perspectives with the ease of spinning a rotary knob.

Until recently, Wauters had viewed his solo project as just that - a singular expression of his artistic vision. A trip through Latin America while recording his last album, however, laid the groundwork for a different approach. Inviting local musicians to contribute to the songs he was working on produced a collection unlike any of his previous work, infused with the musical traditions of each country he’d visited. As a result, 2018’s La Onda De Juan Pablo and its follow-up, Introducing Juan Pablo, were Wauters’ most expansive and sonically diverse records to date, tracing both his Uruguayan roots and his travellers’ spirit.