Austin City Limits is thrilled to announce that we will be live streaming our upcoming Season 49 taping with global music powerhouse Jorge Drexler in his ACL debut on July 31 at 8pm CT. The celebrated superstar swept the 2022 Latin Grammy Awards with a record seven awards, including top honors of Record of the Year and Song of the Year. ACL offers fans worldwide the unique opportunity to watch this taping live in its entirety free here on our ACLTV YouTube Channel.
Jorge Drexler is an Uruguayan musician and singer-songwriter with a storied professional career—over the course of three decades, he has recorded fourteen studio albums and has toured all over the world. The widely-acclaimed and decorated artist is the recipient of an Academy Award (2004) and thirteen Latin Grammys (2014, 2018, 2021, 2022). In 2022 Drexler released the acclaimed Tinta y Tiempo (Ink and Time), his fourteenth studio album, earning an astonishing seven awards at 2022’s Latin Grammy Awards, including top honors of Song of the Year and Record of the Year for the album’s breakout single “Tocarte” (To Touch You).
The sweeping and cinematic Tinta y Tiempo focuses on nature’s invention of love as a survival mechanism. “It was the thematic vector that informs the entire record, the kind of discourse that comes up when you emerge from a pandemic,” says Drexler. “Dealing with fear and the possibility of death makes you ponder the importance of life. Love as driving energy, life’s dynamo. This is why I believe the album is filled with color.” Anchored on his trademark poetic cosmovision and quirky wordplay, the collection is boosted by exquisite orchestral arrangements. Guest artists including Panamanian songwriter Rubén Blades, Spanish rapper C. Tangana, Israeli rapper/singer Noga Erez and Uruguayan singer Martín Buscaglia add color to a sophisticated songbook that finds Drexler’s voice—a wondrous instrument, capable of evoking vulnerability, hope and wistfulness within a single verse—in a state of grace.
Rolling Stone calls the album “One of the most whimsical and free-spirited albums of his 30-year career.” The New York Times remarks that “Tinta y Tiempo is Drexler’s 14th studio album in a recording career filled with richly poetic, ingeniously constructed songs, delivered with amiable understatement.” This is an album of classic elegance and, at the same time, the overall sound vibrates in a very contemporary frequency, combining elements of candombe, pop, bossa nova, flamenco, bolero, Carioca funk, hip hop, trap, zamba, soul, Panamanian mejorana, or baguala, filtered through the sound of the orchestra, samples, percussive textures, female vocals, bass, drums, electric guitar and keyboards.
The conceptual song cycle of Tinta y Tiempo sums up Drexler’s lush take on popular song, its ability to uplift and enlighten. “We have just emerged from a very difficult experience [the pandemic],” he adds. “Our capacity to love and our zest for life have been tested. The act of loving involves a certain sense of confusion, of losing control, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We should not lock ourselves in a world fueled by fear and self-oppression. We must keep our hearts thirsty for more, much more – against all odds.”
Join us here on July 31 at 8 p.m. CT for Jorge Drexler; the broadcast episode will air on PBS this fall as part of our upcoming Season 49. Tune in to your local PBS station on Saturday nights for fan-favorite encore episodes of Austin City Limits; watch live on PBS, or stream anytime at PBS.org.