Donna Summer playing at Sofia Moreno's apartment in Pilsen
It was late April in Chicago and the entire world was collapsing as islands of opulence exerted their methods of social control across entire populations of traumatized and heartbroken mortals. Chicago had just broken a new record: 1,000 people had been shot between January and April 2016, a 400 person increase juxtaposed to the same time period in 2015. This in combination with interpersonal and personal miasma meant that I would dance that weekend. I needed an escape. I needed to get lit. I arrived at Sofia Moreno’s apartment in Pilsen for breakfast at about 2:00PM with some angst, some journalistic prospects and a desire to connect to the brilliant, artistic resilience of those of us who live in one of the many purgatories of capitalism, Chicago. Me and Sebby were greeted with besos en la mejilla, conchas, and a panic-inducing cafecito. Cafecote. There was disco already playing on vinyl: Donna Summer. Zemmoa picked the record. Zemmoa was Sofia Moreno's guest of honor. Sofia Moreno. Perhaps the most controversial anomaly in the Chicago art scene. And the most essential. She is one of the chief architects of s+s project, a curatorial practice creating direct cultural exchange and dialogue between artists in Mexico City and Xicago. Don't be skeptical about the pre-hispanic, Indigenous art that adorns many of s+s project's promotional imagery.
Sofia Moreno as A$$ Pussy @ TRQPITECA. Photo by Zé Garcia Puga
Sofia Moreno- a grotesque and bewitching survivor of European commanded genocide- is aware of her Indigenous, Mayan ancestry. s+s project is the reason Zemmoa is in Chicago and showcasing at the idiosyncratic TRQPITECA. As I sip my coffee, Zemmoa grooms her nails, and talks about her conflicted origins, her present resentments, and her uncertain future. It is remarkable how beautiful Zemmoa looks without makeup, in baggy clothes, disheveled. Zemmoa and Sofia Moreno just woke up. Its 2PM. Zemmoa begins our interview by calling Mexico City home but explains that she was born in the “city of the eternal spring,” Cuernavaca. She lives in the Coyoacan neighborhood of DF and was neighbors with Frida Kahlo at one point: “we used to be friends”. Not even 5 minutes into cafecito & chill with Zemmoa and her pedigree begins to show: “my grandmother played piano for Frida Kahlo once. Music has always been in my family.” She isn't joking this time, she comes from a strong lineage of classically trained musicians. Zemmoa abruptly changes pace, her body movement tense and her explanations become terse. Zemmoa is on the run. Not from the law, mind you. Zemmoa is on the run from a supreme power. Zemmoa is on the run from love, from heartbreak. In a span of 1 hour, Zemmoa returns to speaking about the man that broke her heart a few times, her face in sincere anguish each time. “I’m tired of Mexico. I fell in love. Typical. This güey stopped seeing the light inside of me so I began to question myself and I had to escape.” I usually self destruct, but when you’re Zemmoa and a güey breaks your heart, you go on tour. But Zemmoa won’t just play anywhere. Her performances are methodical, precise. She explains her DIY approach but makes clear divergences from a “play anywhere, anytime” punk praxis. We delve deeper. Zemmoa speaks on recurring feelings of self doubt and emptiness. I sense self hatred, the same self destruction that propels each and every one of us to the depths of a disfigured sense of self worth. “I feel without love, self love or otherwise. I am crazy and this is how I feel, abandoned.” Self deprecating tendencies are the reason behind Zemmoa’s search for optimism: NNVAV (Nada Nos Va a Vencer), also the name of her most recent album. It is a nostalgic record indebted to 80s synth pop that simultaneously pays homage to the sounds of that era while addressing the current landscape of 21st Century pop. It is one 2015's most underrated albums in the Club Fonograma scene.
Zemmoa has valid reasons to hate and want to conquer the pop underground. Zemmoa resents life because of the tribulations she has undergone as a gender non conforming trans person in Mexico, a country that routinely murders its origins: its indigenous ancestors and its womn. She seems to be channeling some total destrucción vibes and talks at length about the intrinsic human desire to search for meaning and happiness beyond the current suffocating paradigms of everyday misery. Very early on our conversations became deep cuts and I realized these were fresh wounds for Zemmoa so I had to change course. Zemmoa had just met me and here I was pressing for more intimate, jarring details- I had to back off and asked her about Mexico’s underground music scene. “I am very much part of the underground,” she explains. “But what has changed is that now I am part of the global underground. A lot of friends tell me to simply believe it, that I have made it. But I think the moment I believe it, I will lose my humility."
Zemmoa @ TRQPITECA. Photo by Zé Garcia Puga
We talk about record deals and her artistic process. “I am very DIY, all my videos I direct myself, with the help of friends. This is out of necessity, everything costs so much money so I have to do it myself." We talked about her search for a disquera: "record labels in Mexico were not ready for a persona like me so que chinguen a su madre. I started my own.” She is apparently good friends with Julieta Venegas and asked me to say hi to Javiera Mena on her behalf in the coming days during our exclusive interview in LA. We turn the conversation towards her first album and the #LaEdadDeAcuarioTour (her first tour) which showcased in Madrid, Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Milan, Barcelona, New York, Los Angeles, Tijuana, Guadalajara, Leon, Aguascalientes and Mexico City. We talk about DF nightlife, los antros: “the Patrick Miller is a must, my song ‘Te Enterraré El Tacon’ is a classic there.”
As violence against trans womn and gender non conforming people continues to not make (inter)national headlines, it should be noted that Sofia Moreno and Zemmoa are brown trans womn from Mexico. On April 22nd 2016, their alchemy was devoted to a night of mischief, mystery, and dance. TRQPITECA was the showcase for MALA NOCHE (co curated by Jonathan Summer of s+s project) which also featured performances by Sofia Moreno (A$$ PUSSY) and BONBON. We got lit until closing time, courtesy of CQQCHIFRUIT and La Spacer- seminal figures in Xicago’s queer underground nightlife. La Spacer took us through cybernetic reggaetón wormholes whereas CQQCHIFRUIT reminded us of some of the origins behind the likes of "El Fondo Del Barro" and Adrianigual: Alaska y Los Pegamoides. TRQPITECA's MALA NOCHE- a space curated by queer and trans brown womn- and its collusion with incomprehensible and magnificent ways of self liberation felt like a zenith in Chicago's measurable tradition as a fulcrum of underground self expression. To me, it seemed like the next battlefield was to take such elated degrees of nightlife to the streets, to the illegal warehouses, and conflictual spaces where our fullest potential for dangerous liberation could manifest into a weaponized turn up. Sonically, the cutting edge was already here.
La Spacer & CQQCHIFRUIT @ TRQPITECA. Photo by Zé Garcia Puga.
Part 2 of our conversion with Lido Pimienta. Click HERE to revisit the first part and stream her newest single, "Agua."
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Souad Martin-Saoudi: How’s the Toronto community and your creative crew? Could you tell us about your Bridges series?
Lido Pimienta: I have a big crew. From musicians, to visual artists, to fashion designers, to galleries, to festival organizers, to critical thinkers, to DJs. Toronto is an amazing place to be, and despite the inevitable hetero-patriarchy and racism one faces here on the daily, I mean, I am just another POC on colonized land… despite that stuff, Toronto is fertile, and wonderful people like David Dacks from The Music Gallery, Sergio Elmir aka DosMundosRadio, LAL aka UNIT 2, Xpace, and many other organizers have shown me incredible support, not just by liking my photo on facebook, but by actually putting money behind and providing a space for my ideas to flourish. Ideas like my arts/music festival Bridges, whose mandate is to bring artists from South American diaspora working in a similar ways as an artist in Canada. We’ve had Isa Gt, Conector (Aterciopelados), Zuzuka Poderosa, Tanya Tagaq, Boogat and many other performers grace our stage - I get support for the many workshops and curatorial projects I produce. I should also shout-out the Toronto Arts Council, Factor, Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council for the support. It would be impossible to attempt half the things I have been able to do without the times they have supported my initiatives.
SMS: You also have been referencing to Gangster pop as one of your genres. I would like to know more about that label, and what it represents to you.
LP: I am interested in taking words with a negative connotation, and shift their meaning and apply to them my vernacular. The words slut, bitch and whore have hurt me so much in the past. Now I embrace and encourage all my bitches to slut it up and be all the hoe-self their heart desires, and this is a movement that Black Feminists lead, like anything good in the world of course. So, because I know people expect me to be this “cute,” or “child-like” singer, I like the idea of labeling myself as something I see fits more like, “satanic pop” or “gangster pop.” There is nothing that gives me and has given me more disgust than when I get labeled as “world music,” it is such a simplistic, racist and lazy label. No thank you. I am “Satánica” !
SMS: When you write, who do you write for? For yourself, or do you write with your audience in mind?
LP: I'm still trying to figure out who my audience is. I don’t write for anyone else but myself. My heart is wounded, so I know the feeling is familiar to the world. So my experience will resonate, no matter what I say, no matter what I do. I keep WOMXN in mind, I keep single mothers in mind, I keep youth in mind and womxn in South America who have no access to safe abortions, I keep Indigenous and Black womxn in all of the Diasporas who are fighting to stay alive. Color was about that too, but the person singing those chants was more hopeful. La Papessa is hurt. She is LOVE, but she is also PAIN. She is light, but she also is comfortable in darkness.
SMS: And when you collaborate with others?
LP: When I collaborate with others, Lido leaves the room. I enter the world of my collaborators completely. For instance, “Jardines” was a hymn inspired in the world of Chancha Via Circuito. I ask, “what is the vibe, what is the title, what mindstate were you in when you wrote the music?” and I go from there. “Un jardin, comienza con una semilla...” it is very hippie, very kind, very generous, like Chancha is. “Reza Por Mí” is a love song. I cannot write love songs for Lido Pimienta...I write songs about pain, about heartbreak, but in that song for Atropolis, the beat was so light, and beachy... I had to, I just had to.
The same for Capullo in “A Quién Amas En Realidad Es A Mí.” I understand Capullos' aesthetic, I knew their style could be complemented by something raw, but funny and witty, with Pop Culture AND colloquial lengua “todo lo que tenía puesto era de segunda, pero mi ropa interior si era nueva.” I mean... I feel I have written more songs for other people than I have in my own catalogue, but I step out and get inside the brain of whoever wants to collaborate. Sometimes it doesn't stick. On Javiera Mena' “Luz de Piedra de Luna,” I wrote a part: “navegando galaxias, por un camino estelar, con luz de piedra de luna, tu tienes el poder,” but she decided to just keep the harmonies, and that's totally fine. When you write something for someone else, you are just another instrument, I am lucky that 99% of the time, people let me be free.
Lido with Gepe & Javiera Mena
Fun fact about “Agua” tho: I wrote the song after my first Mexico trip. Juan Manuel Torreblanca, the angel who brought me down there for the first time and introduced me to really awesome people, made it possible for me to meet and get contacted by Ximena Sarinana, we originally spoke about doing something together, so I did an acapella…”Los cabellos, de tu madre, acarician tu cara…” and I sent her the acapella thinking we would figure out the music as we went, but, i guess she wanted a full song, or who knows, those people are too famous! Perhaps her management were like “why are you clowning around with that Lido person, she is not famous,” but “Agua” kept growing and now it is the opening act to this tragi-comedia that is La Papessa.
SMS: In an interview you gave to Now in late January, you said that you felt like everything you could possibly do in Toronto, you had done, and that you were tired of having these conversations – conversations about what it’s like to make music as a racialized performer in a “multicultural Canada” where you are granted support and exposure at the expense of a token status – and seeing that things don’t change; you added that your next step was going back to South America, the States and Europe. I would like to hear more on that! I’m interested to know how you apprehend the international reception of your work. How do you tackle tokenism and deconstruct stereotypes?
LP: I would like to think that people book me and want me because I am damn good. But I also know that some bookers and promoters, get me in their bills because they got a government grant, and they can check one of many boxes when they book me. Woman: check. Minority: check, and so on. It is difficult as well, because it is in Canada and USA that I find the most support now, when it used to be in South America. Rarely I get emails from South America or Mexico anymore. But I also know that this is my fault, I have not dropped a new album, or song in a long time. I feel as though people have me in their collective/nostalgic memory. Also, music industry is one of the most competitive, depressing, problematic, desperate industries. The people who used to be “my friends” don't have a use for me anymore. I can't give them personal emails and phone numbers or facilitate contact avoiding management or music shows anymore. I am not culturally valuable anymore, and I am fine with that. It is all part of my plan, to disassociate myself with any scenes, I want to be my own movement. I do miss having talks with some of the people from my 15 minutes of fame, but, the real relationships I was left with afterwards are there for me and I am here for them. It has been a crazy roller-coaster, but now I am ready to go back to music, wiser, stronger and with a better sound. A sound that is mine and unique, not to be fucked around with.
Photo by Ruthie Titus @ruthtitus
SMS: Could you give me your thoughts on the failure of multiculturalism? How does it hurt racialized artists? Is decolonization a viable alternative? What does decolonization mean to you?
LP: The failure is evident when we look around and observe how media is still whitewashed. As Canadians, we live in a “multi-cultural” society, but we know this is wrong. The “better” term should be “pluri-cultural”, we do not mix. The latinx crew, hang with their own, although we are starting to be more aware and intersectional, the Korean with their crew, and so on. The white people, you know, they have their vanilla with white chocolate chip fest, and they come to our “world music” events with their sun cream and sandals with socks combos. To me, the one truly diverse groups or spaces are those who are led and organized by QTPOC folk. You go into those spaces or party with them, and you truly see, a sneak peak of what a multi-cultural society ought to look like.
It is utterly disturbing to me, when I look at the state of “pop” music in South America. The emulation of “white culture” makes me want to vomit. I mean, youth culture is global, I get it, but also, the magnificent element that we as Afro-Indigenx-Spanish carry, is that exactly, our mix, our multilayer influences and narratives. I love it when someone like Gepe goes ahead and gets Wendy Sulca to play, its so wild and whimsical! That is what music is all about.
There is this wrong impression that white people created “rock and roll”, Rock and Roll was pioneered by a Queer Black woman, her name was Sister Rosetta Tharpe. We look at rock-pop now, and most people in that genre idolize The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, who by the way, just stopped by Colombia, they probably filled an arena. I mean… It is really a pathetic affair when a dinosaur pays you a visit after they've been dead and irrelevant for centuries. All of this to say, that we are ignorant to HERstory, and it is this simple fact that makes me want to leave Canada and go back to my roots, be in Colombia and play with my sheroes, the real rocks stars, Petrona Martinez, Martina Camargo, Sexteto Tabala... I mean... the day that they fill an arena in Colombia… is the day I will have no sorrow in my heart.
SMS: I’m curious about your self-care rituals. Would you care sharing them with us? You’ve been posting some pictures of your tejido apprenticeship and work on Instagram. Is it part of your self-care ritual?
LP: Tejidos are in my blood. My family is Indigena Wayuu. Weaving is in our DNA, and I weave because it is relaxing, helps me think. I just broke up with a friend of 8 years, her leaving my life was painful, traumatic but necessary. Weaving helps me bury the bad memories and begin a new story.
Self Care by Lido Pimienta:
1. Hair: wash every two days, brush every night and put in a high bun to help it grow 2. Face: wash with warm water and dry with face cloth, not body towel 3. Skin: coconut/shea butter 4. Butt/thighs: mix coconut oil with coffee grind (avoids cellulite and energizes) 5. Sex with your partner or yourself regularly, orgasm always. DO NOT FAKE IT.
SMS: About your promo single “Agua,” water has always been full of symbolism: birth and death, women, mother, purity… many rites are attached to it. What is your relation to water?
LP: My obsession with water began in Colombia, I could swim before I could walk. I was always swimming back home. River water, ocean, lake, pool... Water. There is crisis in La Guajira. This song is about rescuing water, giving her a song - canto - al - agua - to protect her, so that she can protect us. I am starting my own campaign, by the way. Here is the promo:
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Be sure to look for #LIDOTV on her Instagram, Twitter and other social networks. Lido Pimienta will be live streaming her Papessa set from the Great Hall at LONGWINTER TORONTO Festival - stream begins from 10pm (ET).
Lido Pimienta is back! Almost six years have passed since Color was first released and a lot has happened to our Colombian darling. Club Fonograma has been blessed with the best come back offering ever: an exclusive, in depth interview, along with “Agua”, the first single off highly anticipated second LP La Papessa.
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Souad Martin-Saoudi: Colordates back to 2010 and the release of La Papessa has been rumored for some time… Here at CF, we’ve been anticipating it since 2012! Could your give us an insight into your life, and walk us through the evolving shape of La Papessa?
Lido Pimienta: Since the Color era, Ive been keeping to myself and my family. Color was a wonderful introduction to life outside of my naive/Utopian head. It all seems like a blur now. It is almost as if it never even happened. This question could be answered in many ways, and take several turns, but to keep a 6 year old story short (or at least try): I took a break from the music industry after realizing I was not fit for it, I was not prepared for the amount of ugly business that happens behind the scenes. I was the target of many social climbers, one label runner in particular used me to get his artists a European tour by using my name to do so (and almost succeeded at it), he claimed he was my booker, manager and lied to me and bookers down there...This episode in particular made me take several steps back and stop pursuing a career in music. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps some of the negative experiences I lived back then were some if not the same reasons why Rita Indiana decided to stop performing music live.
The first major change in my life after Color, was that my husband and I separated. Also known as Golden Death Music, my ex was not only my family, father of my kid, but also the genius co-creator, musician and producer behind the Color LP. The songs were made in our tiny home while breastfeeding, being young, dumb and excited creatives amongst a vibrant artistic and musical community in London, Ontario. Canada was also a new country to both of us. "Luces" was our goodbye song, the last one we worked on together. Still one of my favorites.
After our separation, I moved to Toronto, Ontario and decided to pursue a degree in Art Criticism and Curatorial Practice. I moved to the big city with my kid and dedicated my time to my studies while figuring out life as a single mother.
The first year was really rough and I was having panic and anxiety attacks regularly, I kept thinking there was no way I could do it on my own, without him. In one of those many insecurity stricken moments, music pal Ulises Hadjis read my Tarot (via Skype) and revealed to me the power of The High Priestess: La Papessa - A female figure, sitting on her throne with a book on her lap. The symbolism behind it opened my eyes to my own inner strength, as a womxn, mother, as a thinker, planner - I wrote the first song for it, "Ruleta", the song would help me go through the pain and fear I felt at the time. Sometimes being alone is the best, and accepting that reality proves impossible to accept at times, actually...much too often.
I started working on songs after my child would go to sleep. Back then I shared my bedroom with him. Toronto is really expensive so I shared my room to save up some cash. I built him a bed out of milk-crates and wood under my loft bed and I bought a refurbished desktop, speakers, a little mixer, and several “how to ableton” YouTube tutorials later I had me a little demo ready. No band, no friends (in music), no family, but a cute 4 song EP nonetheless.
One lucky night a curious white boy heard my solo set at some gallery show. He contacted me and asked if we could play together. I said something like, “yes, but only if you would do so dressed in a cute dress”, but obviously more than a “requirement”, my intent with such question was mainly to make sure this cis-white dude was not going to end up being some homo/trans-phobic asshole. I showed him my songs and we started working them in a tiny studio he had behind a gallery called Creatures. His name was Kvesche Bijons-Ebacher, he became my son instantly. We started playing shows and I started getting lots of attention, well, enough attention in the art/indie Toronto scene, enough to justify doing the crazy music thing again.
Another curious white boy approached me, he was friends and an old collaborator of Kvesche’s. His name was Blake Blakely, an intellectual and visionary who (of course) showed up at my door with a Moog under his arm: “Hi, I decided I don't want to do a remix for you anymore, I want to play with you instead”, and just like that, we started building the songs more, in my bedroom, we brought all of our gear together and started the machine.
I started getting booked for more shows, and we played with different brass people each time. Always different, trying new things, the stage was my playground. I would write these wild parts for woodwind and brass, but no one from that jazz, classical world would stick around to play with us, though. Those people in this city are way too busy! That was until Robert Drisdelle, composer and multi-instrumentalist, heard about me and how I liked to collaborate with different live musicians and approached me. He then showed up to my house...with a damn electric guitar. I was so confused...I told him “guitar is not going to cut it, I am against guitar, there’s too much of it in the world, I don’t want it in my album, what else you got?” He threw his guitar out the window and brought me his beautiful bass clarinet. And that was it, the band was formed.
We kept playing more shows, perfected them, wrote new tunes, experimented with visuals… One particular show caught the attention of long-time supporter of Lido Pimienta, who is also A Tribe Called Red’s manager, Guillaume Decouflet. He offered us the opportunity to tour with Tribe. We were so excited, we felt a new reviving energy, It was all forming, it was all working out. We went on tour with them, and we killed it. Guillaume and Tribe gave us a fantastic opportunity to perform my songs in front of thousands of people, perfect the live show, learn about contracts, royalties, booking events, essentially, an Industry of Music education, all the stuff I was too inexperienced and vulnerable to deal with first time around for Color Era. Touring with Tribe, gave me a healthy and safe place to educate and empower myself. Words cannot describe how much I love those men.
In September 2013, my younger brother, father of one, took his own life. A young beautiful life, gone. It was and still is the most shocking, painful and difficult thing my family and I have had to experience. Ever. It took me a long time to recover. I mean, I still have not recovered from it, and I might not ever recover from it. A part of you dies when your sibling dies. There are no words to explain. I had to put La Papessa and everything related to it on hold. This chunk of my life is also a blur for me, I keep waiting to wake up and have everything just turn out to be nothing more but a terrible nightmare.
School got really hard for me after this, there was no space for concentrating, I was putting on a front, a facade, pretended that everything was OK. I hurt myself by doing this. I also started working in arts organization more, I was worried about making money and providing emotional support for my mother, my sister, my brother’s girlfriend and their son. It took a while, a long while before I felt I was ready to play/record again. But eventually you know, art/music is what I do, so it became my safe heaven...singing...under the moon…
Slowly but surely it happened, seasons changed, time passed, and my heart was sewn up with the delicate yet strong silk thread of friends, chosen family, my sisterhood and collaborators in the city. I thank them deeply for their love. We played some shows and decided to go for it again, we made plans to go to the studio, we played a couple new shows, we were ready to lay the tracks down, we were on fire.
But then, life had yet another dark joke awaiting. My amazing friend and genius collaborator, Blake Blakely (who’s behind “Agua” beat/production) got seriously ill. My world came apart. The new-found stability was shaking, was fragile, got torn apart. We knew the road would be difficult, but we decided to continue working together. We figured out ways to make it work, around hospital visits - plotting world domination. I took a month off, I went to back to Colombia, to visit my brother’s grave for the first time since his passing, I stayed with my family, in the north coast of Colombia, my family is Indigena Wayuu, I needed to be home. The desert air, the ocean, the sun, fresh fruit and my aunties’ embrace filled my soul.
Photo Credit: Nic Pouliot / rockphoto.ca
Upon returning to Canada, and after seeing with my own eyes all the damage done to the indigenous population there, by the racist experiment the Colombian government, on purpose and in collaboration with Canadian, US and European mining corporation, I knew it was time to go back to it. I knew that the pain and struggle experienced by that little girl who once posted a song to her Myspace and Julieta Venegas really liked, had to get her shit together and use her voice for something good. So I am back with “Agua”. In retrospect, this album, La Papessa, is the narrative of a girl who was living in a dream world, but then life made sure she got shaken, woken - and I am now at last, more than ever: Woke.
Stay tuned. Part 2 of our interview with Lido Pimienta will be published tomorrow.
A few days ago, Club Fonograma had the privilege of interviewing Julieta Venegas for the second time. Once again, we dispatched “the World’s First Julieta Venegas Scholar” to the historic Aztec Theater in downtown San Antonio for an interview about motherhood, the rise of the Mexicana singer-songwriter, and her legacy. For a refresher on our first Julieta Venegas interview from 2010, see here (Part 1) and here (Part 2). Also, don't skip out on her latest video, "Tu Calor," below.
by Andrew Casillas
Andrew Casillas: How has motherhood changed your work?
Julieta Venegas: In a lot of ways. [My daughter] has pretty much made me change my logistics and I’ve become more disciplined in some sense. Now I have a certain schedule that I like to respect, and it’s 9-5. I know it sounds silly, but it really works for me because I know that I have those hours and she knows that I have those hours, so in that sense I have become more disciplined. With touring, I think I pause a little bit more. I don’t do long trips and I don’t really feel like doing them because I want to really be around. It used to be that music was the center of everything and I’d work around making music. And now music has been put to the side and there is a five year-old girl sitting in the center now, and she’s the most important thing for me.
AC: What happens then when it’s 11 at night and you have an inspiration but she’s crying or making noise?
JV: Well, I skip the idea. I’ve also become really good at just grabbing the phone and going, “Lalalala” whatever, and just getting to the crying girl. And I do get ideas even when I’m with her. When I start writing, it seems like my brain starts working in that direction so sometimes a lot of ideas will start coming up when I’m with her. And I’m not shy with her, I’ll just grab the phone and record the idea and then later I’ll work on it, during my office hours.
AC: Has motherhood affected your songwriting or approach to storytelling, now that you have another perspective to draw from you? Or are the things that you write about still entirely personal?
JV: I think my vision has changed and [motherhood] makes it bigger. It’s definitely influenced my writing. Because when I’m with her we’ll just improvise a song and we do a lot of improvising. I sing more than ever when I am with her. Never before was I at my house and then start improvising a song out of nothing, you know? I’ll be making a salad and I’ll go, “Oh, let’s put the lechuga” and [everything] and she will sing along or she will make up her own verse and we play with it a lot. I didn’t used to do that. It’s just that music is also another element in our daily lives and that definitely influences the way that I work. In many ways, I’m just really natural about what I write. I’ve always sort of been natural but now it seems effortless, in a way.
AC: I’ve been slightly obsessed with the circumstances around your song “Explosión.” It definitely has a political bent to it that most of your songs do not. And in a sense, you’re kind of speaking directly to a segment of your audience, but not in a positive way. Did you think about that when you were putting that song together? Did you wonder if that chunk of your audience would understand the message? I mean, because you knew they were going to hear it…
JV: It was hard for me to write it because I don’t usually do songs that are politically inclined, because I wouldn’t call it political, but explicit about something so present [in Mexico] right now. I’m just writing about something that is really painful for me, and I think for a lot of people, definitely. You see your country changing so much and you could just write about other stuff, you know, write about love and other, easier things. But for me, I thought maybe I should just try doing this song that is bugging me, because I had this feeling that I didn’t know how to explain, and it wouldn’t go away while I was writing about other things. The song is just asking a question. Because if you don’t start by asking questions and you keep acting like nothing’s going on, then nothing ever changes, you know? It’s not that I became an idealist now and I think that one song is going to change the world or anything, but the song communicates what I was feeling at that point. I think that song came from the same place where love songs come from. It’s all connected to my emotions and I have a profound sadness and frustration for what I see going on in Mexico.
AC: You’ve been in the music game for about 20 years now. And, we’re at the point where people like Natalia Lafourcade are winning Grammys; not just the genre awards, but Big Time awards. There is a generation of artists, who are now part of the establishment, that obviously feel that they are in your debt—they admit that you’re a large influence. Do you feel like an elder stateswoman? Do you feel some sort of connection to this new wave of serious pop stars?
JV: Yeah, I feel really proud of them and I feel like that, not just because I was around before Natalia or Carla [Morrison] or anybody. Do I feel like I should get more credit? Not at all. I think that it’s part of a process and maybe I helped in the industry to kind of normalize the fact that a woman can be a songwriter and have her own ideas and have her own aesthetic and just not follow. She maybe doesn’t want to tell somebody else’s stories, you know? And maybe, that kind of pushed it. I think it’s pretty healthy also, for music to have a different vision, maybe a feminine vision; not necessarily a songwriter who does songs for a woman to sing them, or whatever. I think it’s just healthy for someone to tell their own stories, and to be around, and I think the more female songwriters there are, the less we talk about it, and it’s more like a natural thing.
AC: So, I want to talk a little bit about your legacy, then; because the U.S. has a history of independent female singer-songwriters. But in Latin America, let’s be honest, it’s only a recent phenomenon for female musicians to feel comfortable playing to strict gender roles. Do you feel like that’s part of a legacy that you and others like Ely Guerra have led to, or do you not think that’s something you could take credit for? Like that would have happened even if you had not come out with a nose ring while wearing plain clothes and makeup 20 years ago?
JV: {laughs} Yeah, I think that I don’t take credit for that. I mean, I definitely feel it’s a process, and it’s natural, that things will always change and they evolve, and I was just part of it. That doesn’t mean that I caused it. It was going to happen anyway. It always happens like that. A new generation always brings something different, and that’s the way it is. You can’t keep looking back and wondering how you’re supposed to do things. You just do it the way you feel like it, and especially in music, you know. You have to do whatever you feel, and that means, dress however you want, and it will be recognized as something normal . . . eventually.
AC: So we’ve been talking about your legacy . . .
JV: YOU call it my legacy {laughs}, I don’t call it that.
AC: I’m not saying it because you’re retiring or anything!
JV: No, no, no, I just mean it sounds really big, like [gestures], you know what I mean?
AC: Well, it kind of is, right? You’re what we’d call venerable… And that means that your music has thoroughly evolved into something distinctive. You have a sound essentially, by this point, right? Do you feel that you have a sound, or do you think that you’re still finding new things that are completely different with each record?
JV: No, the thing is that I think I just work intuitively; so I don’t have a conceptual sense of what I do. I don’t write a song, thinking I have to break everything that I’ve done before to do something completely different. I’m just so involved with the craft of writing, that I really enjoy it. Whatever my intuition leads me to do, whatever direction I might want to go, I’ll just take that direction. I think the writing part is still, and it’s always been, where I feel that I keep finding new directions. But maybe it’s subtle? It’s not like I completely transformed, because I do definitely like to work on songs. I consider myself more as a songwriter, and I enjoy that, and to me, the story, the lyrics, that whole thing, is why I work at it so much, because I really think that’s the center of everything.
AC: Is there any particular person or band’s career arc that you say, “I’d be happy if my career was like this person’s 20 years from now?”
JV: I think Caetano Veloso’s career, definitely. He’s been amazing for such a long time. And while she’s [more of a contemporary], Marisa Monte is someone else I admire. I think she’s amazing, the way she works, everything. She’s totally inspiring for me. Every time I see the way she does things, in every sense; her making records, and touring, and everything. I’m just a really big fan of hers. I mean, I think I really admire longevity. I just feel like you get to a point where, I just feel like it’s still new. I don’t feel like I’ve been doing it a long time. I mean, I’m not really counting the years that I’ve been around, or anything. I feel like I still have a lot to learn, and I hope I have enough time.
AC: So you don’t feel like the Rolling Stones, where you’re just playing the same 15 songs every single time you go out there? You’re still able to do the new stuff.
JV: I kind of need to do the new stuff, you know? I need to change the songs around. I’m not going to say that I don’t love playing old songs, because I love playing and seeing the audience singing along. When I go see a show, I like to sing the songs that I know. I love that part. But I also love winning them over again with my new songs. And it’s not an ego thing; like, “Ooooh, we have to listen to this new one. It’s all going to be about the new one.” No! It’s going to be like a party.
AC: So, speaking of old songs, do you see yourself, at any point, going back into the Aquí or Bueninvento well? JV: Here we go! {laughs}
AC: I know we’ve talked about this! I know the last time we talked, you said, “That’s a different person, and it’s hard for me to go back to that, because it’s like singing and pretending to be someone else.” Is that still true, or do you think that there might be a point where that person might want to come back and you want to share that feeling with other people?
JV: Well, do you mean doing a record like that?
AC: Either doing a record or even just playing those songs in concert. I know that you said that it was hard to get behind a piano and play “Casa Abandonada” because the person who wrote that song isn’t really inside of you anymore.
JV: Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe I will find a moment when I go back and try to like como asercarme a esas canciones otra vez. For now, I don’t think I’m even playing any of those songs for myself.
AC: Really?
JV: Yeah, I’m not. I don’t know, maybe I will at one point. I don’t really think about it that much, because there’s something about the structuring, and the lyrics, and everything that sounds so far away from what I think or the way that I feel right now. But, maybe I will. You never know.
Catalan teen band Mourn came to Paris last summer to play at the opening party of French festival La Route du Rock. Ever since I first listened to Mourn I've been curious about the band. They released both an EP (Otitis, Sones, 2014) and a self-titled album (Sones, 2014) last year and are now back with another EP (Gertrudis, Sones, 2015) full of emotional, energetic songs recalling noise bands from the nineties as well as powerful female voices like PJ Harvey. Not that I know everyone in Barcelona, but for the last few years, every new band in the city included members of other bands or someone already known in the scene, thus making the job easier for us writers. This was not the case for Mourn (apart from the father from two of the band members, who wouldn’t be a participant from that aforementioned scene either), and then there was the unexpected success story with the signing from Captured Tracks and the spotlight with videos and an interview in Pitchfork which made everything even more exciting. In Paris, I got to talk with Jazz (guitar, lyrics) for about ten minutes after their set and I asked her about Mourn’s place in the Catalan scene and about their plans for the future.
[Glòria Guso]: Unlike other bands in Barcelona and its area of influence, you first released an EP (Otitis) and an album (self-titled) before starting to play regularly in public. Do you think that this has somehow influenced your music, your way of composing and playing it live?
[Jazz Rodríguez Bueno]: I think that this has maybe influenced our live act, since we had already some recordings and songs but we had never really played live, we had only rehearsed at home, without any public, so we were clumsy and nervous. There has been a progression, we play better, we are more confident and I think everyone can see that. I am not sure that this has influenced the composing process but I can see that we keep evolving and changing our way of doing things, not on purpose because none of us knew this would happen (and maybe if we had known we would have done things differently) but as a result of it. Do you think that all this learning by means of extensively touring (both in Spain and abroad) is going to somehow influence the making of your next album?
The songs in which we are working right now are not that different –generally speaking- from the previously released ones, but I think they are a bit more elaborated, maybe because of the practice. I guess you all must feel surprised and maybe overwhelmed by this sudden success.
Yes, of course, we didn’t expect this at all. We hadn’t fully realized it until we were invited [by Captured Tracks] to play in the United States. But we are very happy about it because it allows us to play concerts very often, so as do many other bands from Barcelona, even if they don’t play that much outside the country. Do you feel a bit like a fish out of water in such as scene [the Catalan one] in which a lot of bands share members or play concerts together very often and everyone (musicians, public, bloggers…) is friends with everyone ?
We have never really thought about this. Maybe because we don’t live right in Barcelona. Or because you are younger than most of the bands [Univers, Da Souza, Furguson, Beach Beach…]?
Yes, definitely. We don’t have the same friends nor the same habits for going out. And most of these bands tour and play together very often, which we don’t. But we keep, of course, a good relationship with everyone when we get to play together or when we see each other in public. Before we had the band we didn’t know any of these people personally, and this of course changes the way we relate to each other.
In this case, I guess any of these bands have been a direct influence to your music or to your decision to start a band or writing songs.
No, not really. We like Beach Beach a lot (and of course Tomeu has designed our covers), but it would be too much to say that they have been an influence, if anything a later one. Leia and I used to listen to The Unfinished Sympathy a lot but it is mostly through Minimúsica that we have gotten to know bands like Doble Pletina, Anímic, Beach Beach… Would you rather say that your father being a musician has been this model figure?
Yes, definitely. Leia and I have seen my father rehearse and tour since we were very young, sometimes we went to his concerts, he played in the living room or taught us how to play guitar… I have always liked it and wanted to do the same. You only play concerts during the weekends or the holidays. I have been told that this is because of Leia’s age and school schedule [Leai, the bassist, is 16 years old]. Do you plan on becoming a professional band or, like Leia, the priority for the moment is not a career in music?
In my case, I am just starting a degree in video, so a career in music will have to wait. Leia is continuing her studies as well . As for Antonio and Carla, they are not that concerned about this at the moment, but we all agree that we want to do something else aside because we don’t know if we are going to do music forever. For us, it's important to have fun and that is what we are doing right now. In your latest EP, Gertrudis (Sones, 2015), there’s a song in Catalan...
We composed this song long ago for Minimúsica [a Catalan festival in which bands play songs for kids. They collaborate with big festivals like Primavera Sound and Sonar] and we decided to include it now in this EP because we thought it was a fun. We have been thinking about writing in Catalan or Spanish or whatever, as it comes– for now it has come in English because of the music we have been listening to, not because of other reasons. We don’t have the objective of singing exclusively in English, we are open to mix songs in different languages. Are you already working on a second album?
The first half of 2014 is almost over, and the debut album from Catalan sensation Univers, L’Estat Natural, still stands as our highest rated album of the year so far. Carlos Reyes declared that "the breaking and sheltering of up-tempo guitars rarely sounds this gorgeous" in his gleeful praising of the Barcelonan group debut. Univers were given the chance to do a small supporting tour for the album, with stops in SXSW and Mexico earlier this year, and more recently with a slot at the Pitchfork Stage at Primavera Sound in their hometown of Barcelona. I had the chance to catch their performance at Parc del Fòrum alongside fonograma colleague Glòria Guirao-Soro, which she wrote about in her recap of the festival. Although we didn’t manage to have a talk with them during the fest (mostly due to my own lack of internet access that coupled with disrupted sleeping patterns following an transatlantic flight), I finally sat down with singer/guitarist Yago Alcover and drummer Aitor Bigas at a café in downtown Barcelona a few days after the festival, where we discussed their debut LP, what playing these big festivals means, the perks of singing in Catalan, and the future of the Barcelonan underground music scene.
Listening to you guys play live for the first time at Primavera Sound, I was gladly surprised at how similar to the record you guys sound live. Did the recording process focus on trying to capture that roughness that’s typical of live shows?
Yago Alcover: Not really, in fact it’s very good you’re telling us this, because this really was a concert that felt like a litmus test to us. We actually didn’t even have a sound tech for Primavera, and these kinds of stages with so much power are always a bit scary. In fact, back when we were starting we always had issues in our live shows, since we always required so much echo effect and so much reverb, it made the sound bounce a lot. We had a sound that wasn’t very concrete and somewhat disperse, and in the end what you heard was percussion and a sort of noise bubble.
Aitor Bigas: It took us some time to discover our sound, especially live, where people were telling us that it still wasn’t all fitting in very well.
YA: When we recorded with Sergio [Pérez from SVPER] we were always facing sound as a challenge. We wanted for instance the guitars to sound somewhat sharp and that it hit you in your face, but of course with the echo it ended up being counter-productive. The album had a lot of work done mostly from the guitars’ point of view, when we finally started to seek a more concrete sound and dedicated a lot of time to finding it. It’s been a long process, so yeah, we’re really glad you’re telling us our live show sounded so faithful to the record, because it’s been really hard for us. It’s always difficult to get a proper handle on the effects, and we’re always struggling to find that balance between the music’s raw power and its more ethereal qualities.
What was it that made you want to record with Sergio Pérez?
AB: We first worked with him on La Pedregada, which was recorded in a single day, really fast, with just us on the studio. We really enjoyed working with him, and although we did consider other producers for the debut LP, we went with Sergio because we already knew him and we liked how he worked. We’ve been really happy with the sound he’s managed to take out of us, and how he’s managed to interpret our ideas as a band. I remember especially the issues with the guitars, which was really crazy but at the same time really fun. We found ourselves experimenting with a thousand different pedals and effects, so it was a really enjoyable process.
YA: Before recording our first EP we were thinking of who could manage to find us a peculiar sound. Of course Sergio had the [FKA] Pegasvs project, and their debut album was pretty much recorded at home. When I heard that record, I remember thinking “Wow! What a sound,” especially after hearing those amazing drums, we always thought that this was the guy who had to record us. He’s a guy who puts together the sound very well and who always surprises you. He’s not the kind of producer who always does things the same way. But it was really listening to Pegasvs that made us decide.
AB: In Pegasvs he recorded all the drums himself, and then played them through a pad with his fingers. He’s a genius. I remember a phrase Yves [Roussel], the guy who mastered the record, told us. That every album Sergio records is a different world of its own. He has a truly unique way of working. Yago, who’s worked with other producers, probably knows best.
YA: Yeah, Sergio has those strikes of genius that you just can’t understand or explain to someone else. And it’s always a plus if he can be an actual active musician.
I remember reading that the LP was written and recorded over a relative short period of time. Do you think that helped to give it that homogenous sound and feeling it has?
AB: Yeah, I think it was right around this time of year last year when we started recording, and focusing entirely on getting this record done, trying to figure out which songs should be included and which should be dumped. But in the end the unifying idea for the album, was that all the songs had to be liked by everyone in the band, and they all had to have a really powerful sound. So perhaps that’s why it feels somewhat homogenous.
YA: I remember that ever since we started playing I told them I was interested in the idea of writing an album in a short time, mostly because of my own previous experiences in other bands. I’ve done albums with songs that were written with a lot of time between them, and they ended up being too heterogeneous. So I wanted our first album to be very compact, one where all the songs came from a precise moment. It’s obviously not a concept album or anything like that, but I really did want our debut to be a sort of cover letter, and that it would stay within certain stylistic boundaries. And there’s of course the mastering and everything, where I think they managed to give all the songs a very similar finishing, so I think that really helped too.
"Paral-lel" was the first song you guys wrote. Why did you decide to have this song in particular included in L’Estat Natural?
AB: "Paral-lel" was the first song Edu [Bujalance] and I did together back when we were sharing a place. The project was only starting, and it was only MIDI drums, guitar lines, it was all very homemade. But despite being the first song, everyone seemed to really like it, even when it was only a demo. We really liked it as well, and felt that it fit in the new LP in both ideas and style. And of course there was the fact that it had been poorly recorded and we wanted to do it justice. It could have ended up not being in the record, and in fact we have a discard from L’Estat Natural that’s probably going to come out as a split 7” soon. There was some arguing around it as well, I used to say “I want this song in the album,” then Yago would say he didn’t want it, but we would always reach an agreement. In the end this is a family.
YA: The song deserved a proper version, and besides it was a very significant song for the band. It was the first song we ever played together.
AB: And it was originally in English.
Speaking of language, how do you guys come to decide what language to sing in? Not only in the case of Univers where you sing in Catalan, but of your other projects where there’s English and Spanish singing as well (Mujeres, Aliment, Piñata).
YA: I think it was all really simple. We were starting to play and just saying “Well we’re going with English right? Right.” And then we thought well what if we try something else? Spanish obviously not, because [the other members] are from the interior of Catalonia, and they’re never going to be in a band that sings in Spanish. But staying away from the territorial issues… we actually thought it could be fun singing in Catalan, but not because we wanted to do things differently. If you think of it, it’s hard to distinguish anything we’re saying regardless of the language we’re singing in anyway. But it’s really beautiful to be able to write in your own language, even more with it being a really small language.
AB: And I don’t think it was that we wanted to innovate or anything. But if you look at it now, a noise pop band doing this type of music in Catalan, that’s not something we’d seen before. And it gave the project some sort of originality even if we weren’t really looking for it initially. Perhaps from an outside perspective it’s a bit harder to understand, but seen from here, singing in Catalan is a really weird thing to do when you consider the kind of music that’s been made in that language. Though sometimes maybe singing in Catalan has closed us some doors.
YA: I don’t think so. In fact I’ve read articles from outside where they say that the whole shtick of the band is that they’re singing in an uncommon language.
I think for some people, it’s given the songs a sort of cryptic value to them. While facing non-Catalan crowds, for instance in SXSW and Mexico, what kind of feedback would you say you got?
YA: Honestly very good. I think people just speak the international language of music, and in the end what people go see is a musical proposal. With Aitor the other day we were listening to a band that sings in Japanese, and I have no idea what they’re saying but they’ve got a sound that I find compelling. Even though it does feel really satisfying to have a proposal that feels really ours because it’s in our language.
AB: And we really haven’t mentioned that the vocals, well, they’re just really another element in the mix, another instrument. They don’t have that much prominence and we use so much reverb that the words just end up being sort of drowned out. It might be different if we were doing more classic pop where you could hear the words a little more.
YA: Yeah, and well the name of the band is in Catalan, the name of the album is in Catalan, so the concept is pretty evident. But I never thought it could end up being seen as something cryptic like you said.
Now that you’ve played at both SXSW and Primavera Sound, do you feel playing these big festivals is a milestone in a band’s career?
YA: Yes of course. Also a challenge, as a band, since you’re facing a situation that’s very different from the ones you were facing back when you were starting -- the small concert rooms, the small local tours. Even though we did play pretty early in the afternoon at Primavera this year, there was still a big crowd for us there. And it’s always very challenging -- you've got a big crowd there, you’ve got the clock against you. I think Primavera has always been a stepping stone festival for many bands.
AB: Being from Barcelona, we’ve been attending the festival for many years, even playing sometimes here and there. Yago had played with Mujeres already. But the fact we played the Pitchfork stage, on a Saturday, in front of that big of a crowd, we really weren’t expecting it. We’re really happy that it happened, as we were to have played at SXSW. We’re very excited for what can come next.
Critics and journalists always like to show off their musical knowledge while describing bands, and I’ve always felt you guys as the midpoint between the distorted beauty of shoegaze and the more simplistic flair of C86. How would you guys describe Univers?
AB: Honestly we all listen to very different music. It’s evident that for this project we were focusing on bands from the C86 style, and some shoegaze bands mostly from Creation Records.
YA: Yeah and I think we’re going towards C86 every time more. That brand of naked pop, with very visible arrangements, melodies that are clearer. At the beginning it seemed like a noisier thing, but I’m getting the feeling the band is going that way right now. Perhaps even a more delicate approach than the one C86 bands had, capturing its more carefree side. I don’t see us becoming a lo-fi band, but something more finite. Maybe also with a tinge of New Wave, the record feels sort of 80's-style, kind of dark actually. We’re a very nostalgic and melancholic band.
AB: But I think the bands from C86 already had that dark side to them. I’ve been listening to Sarah Records a lot recently, and it’s like all the songs are about heartbreak. I can totally see that C86 was a starting point for us, but I think we still sort of managed to bring into our own field and darkened it all a bit more.
The visual aspect of the band (cover arts, videos) is quite remarkable as well; we can see you take care of this very seriously.
YA: Yes. We’ve been very lucky that the people in our entourage, and even ourselves, all come from a background of studying visual-related things. Aitor’s roommate is a photographer, and for instance we’ve got it clear that it’s them we want taking care of our photo shootings.
AB: Actually there’s a funny story about this. I think the first time we were featured in Club Fonograma it was because Giovanni [Guillén] was a fan of our friend Alba Yruela’s photos, and she’s the girl that appears in the cover of "Cavall Daurat". So I think he discovered the band through there, it’s a nice story. And I think in a way for us having a band isn’t really about only making music, it’s something bigger than that. Cover arts, pictures, videos, it ends up being a whole that converges into a music band.
I was reading an interview for Binaural where you were saying that "the crisis was opening a whole new panorama for the underground." What exactly did you mean by that?
YA: When we first touched on that subject, it was in relation to the fact that for some years this city lived a time of tremendous welfare. And I think that somehow affected the underground, because for many people, even from the minute you first showed up, it was pretty easy for you to get started. What that it did was just make us all more comfortable, and a lot of people stopped doing cool things because they had full-time jobs and stuff. But then all of this suddenly came to a halt, we had venues that started closing, bands that weren’t getting paid, people who stopped working, or couldn’t work anymore. So right now, you can really start feeling that people are tremendously pissed off in this city, and that they have a huge hunger for things to happen. I think this is going to be incredibly rewarding for our city for many years, because we had kind of lost that hunger precisely because of the state of well-being that we had.
It’s as is if the crisis environment is being a lot more conducive for people to be creative.
YA: That reflection originally came because we were asked if we felt there were a lot of similar bands coming up, making “noise music,” and I ended up referring to “noise” more in respect to that panorama where I could see a lot of people being pissed off and wanting to do things. I mean today with all the technology there is, you can record from your own bedroom; if you want to do a music project all you need is time or having the need to say something. So right now, I’m seeing a lot more discourse, a lot more ideas, people who are really polishing their craft. It’s become really hard to find a label that can release your stuff, and people have to find ways to self-release it. When you think of the word “underground” that’s exactly what you want. You don’t want people creating an anti-system just because; it requires a complete failure of the system, a system that doesn’t help you or supports you. That’s when people go on to create their own system.
