Las Nubes Is Back With New Music and a Long-Awaited Miami Show

In September, Las Nubes guitarist Ale Campos got a call from Iggy Pop's manager asking if she could learn 16 songs in two days and join the Stooges for some tour dates in Canada. Naturally, Campos said yes and then crammed to commit the set to memory.

"I was terrified just before going on stage, and as soon as I started playing, I was like, 'I got this,'" she says. The band was so supportive and liked her so much that they asked her to play for the performance at III Points in Miami the following month.

This wasn't the first time she was on stage with Pop. Las Nubes played five songs with him during a Gucci- and Snapchat-sponsored Miami Art Week event in 2019. She and Emile Milgrim — the two steady members of the band since its inception in 2017 — and former members were the first all-female Stooges lineup.

After three years of lineup changes and no new releases, Las Nubes is finally delivering a seven-inch single today with the songs "Enredados" and "Drop-In." The last time the band released new music, a split with local alternative rockers Palamino Blond, was in March 2020, right around the time everything shut down due to the pandemic. But Las Nubes is back in action with a new guitarist/bassist, Alumine Soto, and a recent mini-tour with rock musician Vondré in Mexico. For the live shows, they brought along Afrobeta's Cuci Amador, who played bass and sang backup.

Thurston Moore's record label, Ecstatic Peace, is behind the release of "Enredados"/"Drop-In," and physical copies will be on sale at the band's show at SkateBird on Saturday, December 16. Las Nubes performs alongside the young punk band Wetflix, which Campos assures puts on a great show, and the Creature Cage, which the lead singer says is "sometimes psych, sometimes punk, always rockin'."

Campos sings in both Spanish and English on Las Nubes' music. "Enredados," a crowd favorite sung in Spanish, is about obsessive love that renders you helpless. The B-side, "Drop-In," is about skating and how Miami's wild weather patterns can isolate.
"We're from Miami, so it just feels appropriate to [sing in Spanish]. Certain songs come to me a lot easier if I write the lyrics in Spanish," Campos says. When she first started singing in Spanish, "It was also like an act of rebellion because it was during the Trump administration, and everything felt really tense around not being an English speaker here in the United States." It also honors her parents, who are Cuban and Argentinian. (Campos spoke more about this in New Times' 2019 story "In Unity and Defiance, Miami Musicians Embrace the Spanish Language.")

"I want our music to be accessible to everyone," Campos adds.

She emphasizes that the show tomorrow is open to people of all ages. "We always try to do all-ages shows since Emile and I are involved in Miami Girls Rock Camp," she says. "We think it's important to encourage young kids to make music. It's important to build a community from [when they're] very small." Emile was a cofounder and is now a volunteer, sound engineer, and drum instructor at the camp, and Campos is a band coach and guitar instructor.

Campos and Milgrim are both deeply dedicated to supporting and giving back to the South Florida music community. "That's at the core of what this band is about, what this band believes in, and what we want. Everywhere we go around the country or in Mexico, we're always trying to convince people to come to Miami because we've seen how special it is here and how truly amazing this community of artists is. We have our ups and downs, but we see how amazing it can be at its peak, and we want that to grow."

Las Nubes wants to see more resources for artists in Miami and is working on expanding opportunities with Miami Girls Rock Camp. The program offers young kids space to grow and the room to start their own bands. "That's how it all starts," she says. "That's how you keep it going."

Las Nubes. With Wetflix, the Creature Cage, and Rat Bastard. 6 p.m., Saturday, December 16,  at SkateBird, 533 NE 83 St., El Portal; skatebirdmiami.com. Tickets cost $15 via eventbrite.com.