Alex Anwandter Visualizes His Sexual Queer Fantasies on ‘Maricoteca’

Cocaine, leather, BDSM. Chilean artist Alex Anwandter is back after three years with the release of his BDSM-tinged video for “Maricoteca,” his funky “ode to losing yourself on the dance floor.” (In Spanish, the song’s title mashes a gay slur with “discotheque.”)

The Anwandter and Josefina Allen-directed video opens with Anwandter in a rundown living room, snorting a line of cocaine as he bluntly opens the song with his chorus one-liner, “Don’t look for your mom. Here, no one will save you.”

It then splices scenes showing Awandter’s contrasting high visions and fantasies — a light blue studio with a Seventies-esque band and, separately, a lascivious leather gym — as he sings, “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

The song suddenly slows down as the beat and retro electronic sounds overtake the song before Anwandter returns for the catchy chorus.

“I wrote ‘Maricoteca’ as an ode to losing yourself on the dance floor: a place where you might find love, heartbreak, and the ‘perversion’ of society,” he said in a statement about the track.

“Maricoteca” is the first taste of his album to come, which he says will “explore dance culture and discothèques as the ultimate world where you can become who you really want to be.” (He last released Latinoamericana in 2018 and Amiga in 2016.)

“For me, it is a purpose to transcend identity politics in music,” he told Billboard about the album. “To be honest, I wanted to make a very entertaining record that was about having a good time, feeling pleasure — which is a pretty close thing to me — and in my case, in dance music/ It’s a less cerebral and more corporal record.”

Anwandter has spent his time producing for other artists, including Miranda!’s Juliana Gattas, whose debut solo LP, is coming next year, and Julieta Venegas’ LP, Tu Historia, out Friday.

“The collaboration was a dream for me, in the sense that I have always admired Julieta very much. She is one of the most talented musicians we have had in Latin America,” he said. “It was a dream in the sense that we had a great time. We have been friends for ten years. I feel that this took our friendship to a different artistic level.”