Flora and Fauna Chilean Music
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Loading... - Reeta Korhonen
- 07 Jun 2023
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Chilean musician and composer, Pascuala Ilabaca, notes that Chile is strongly influenced by the popular music trends of the United States and Europe. Unlike other parts of Latin America, Chile, particularly its capital city Santiago, strives for modernity. This is reflected in the dominance of Western-style hip hop, trap music, and neo-soul in the Chilean music scene.
What sets Ilabaca apart is her transgressive approach to music. While these popular genres prevail, she remains rooted in the traditional and Indigenous music of Chile, as well as Central and South America. Her music blends experimental elements reminiscent of Kate Bush with horn arrangements that pay homage to jazz fusion and funk. It is rhythmic, fun, expressive, and joyful. Ilabaca aims to create performances that are family-friendly and encourage dancing.
For her EP, Alegriste, Ilabaca, who has won the Pulsar Award (similar to a Chilean Grammy), sought to capture the warm, analog sound found in old Janis Joplin records. She used vintage equipment during the recording process, opting for tape recordings. The brass arrangements were captured live in the studio instead of being overdubbed. Ilabaca emphasizes her intention to infuse the brass with a warm color.
During the 2010s, Ilabaca and a generation of young Chilean musicians explored their country's musical heritage. Ilabaca realized that many people were unaware of Chilean music. She explains that Chilean schools often teach students that their country is distinct from the rest of Latin America, with more European and cosmopolitan traditions. To address this, Ilabaca joined a collective that performed traditional music and toured to introduce traditional sounds and styles to Chilean schoolchildren. Their goal was to demonstrate that music from Chile was not solely for older generations and was, in fact, "cool."
Although Ilabaca embraces traditional forms, she is aware of the sexist lyrical content prevalent in these genres, particularly ranchera. Therefore, she strives to incorporate modern and feminist sensibilities into her work. She sees her music as a blend of the past and present, a mixture of traditional and contemporary influences.
Ilabaca's experiences as a young girl living in India with her parents also play a significant role in her artistic inspiration. The vastly different musical culture of India, including raga, an Indian classical music form characterized by long-form compositional structures and elements of improvisation, has deeply influenced her.
Through her exploration of diverse musical influences, Ilabaca rejects the rigid three-minute pop song formula. She challenges the "binary" approach to Western songwriting, questioning whether all the creativity within us can fit into such a structure. She believes that a binary vision is insufficient and that we must develop and nurture our creativity beyond those limitations.
