Andrea Echeverri ANDREA ECHEVERRI (Nacional)

Hand-holding communal circles are a form of tyrannical exclusion, wrote Milan Kundera in one of his polymorphous-sex-as-political-liberation novels. The tattoo’d, androgynous Andrea Echeverri probably would have agreed in her heady early years fronting Aterciopelados, Colombia’s leading specialists in rock en español, a genre where polymorphous sounds equal liberation of every type. But now she’s entered the most powerful communal circle in Western Civilization — the trinity of a woman, a man, and their first child — and even those who’ve felt that magic bond may feel excluded from the hymns to domesticity that dominate her solo debut. The album narrows Aterciopelados’ kitchen-sink eclecticism to the zone between light international dance beats and sunny South American folk, something like a combination of Morcheeba and Sarah McLachlan. It grooves along sexily and sweetly for the first third — "A Eme O" is catchy enough to earn its hidden remix — but then, like Kundera’s circles, it rises without you, floating off into the fluffy clouds pictured everywhere in the CD booklet. As for the lyrics, they’re often based on clever romantic/maternal puns that don’t translate too well.