“It’s such a vast and huge theme, love. You can approach it in different ways,” reflects Buenos Aires-born songwriter and guitarist Federico Aubele, whose new album Amatoria will be released by ESL Music (May 19, 2009). “Love is such an important thing for every human being, whether we notice it or not. We all experience it at least once in life. It’s one of the few things, along with dying, that is guaranteed to happen to you.”

Way back in 1 BC, the original Latin lover wrote the Western world’s first guide to picking up women Roman-style, Ars Amatoria, the Art of Love. Fast forward two millennia, when Aubele is swiping pages from Ovid’s playbook, by way of smoky tango bars and the sultry heyday of Mexican boleros in the 1940s, and falling hard into the acoustic yet lush Amatoria. In fine Pan-American style, the final impetus for the album came thanks to an all-love-song compilation of classic Johnny Cash.