MEXICO CITY.- In his most recent album, Bacilos set out to return to his roots, both in composition and instrumentation. Most of the songs were composed by Jorge Villamizar, one of the halves of the group, in the last two or three years, but following the style of the singer-songwriter albums of the 1990s.
They come from a challenge of writing alone again, because I have realized that group composition has prevailed and group composition is very interesting and generates very fun things. But it sometimes lacks depth, he said in an interview by video call from Miami. That was originally the idea: to make individual songs that come from a deeper place.
The other part was the execution. To maintain that personal side of the songs, they recorded in blocks, with all the musicians playing in person at the Criteria studio. They were accompanied by Cuban musicians living in Miami with whom they usually go on tour.
We started working on the songs in the pre-production process, just playing them, testing ideas, like we did Bacilos in the beginning, in the 90s, said André Lpes, the other half of Bacilos.
We all recorded and it really sounds very natural, very organic, very true, very much like a live band. That is also the idea so that we can take these songs live and they will sound something very similar to how it sounds on the album, he added.
An album with matices
One of his singles is Climbing plant about a failed relationship, without a real cause for its failure.
Use the metaphor of a relationship that grows around you, like a vine, that is not so rigid, it is not easy to get rid of it, said Villamizar.
Two of the songs come from Villamizar’s self-titled solo album. Climbing plant It is one of them and they recorded it in a new version to present it to the Bacilos public. little romances is the other song taken from Villamizar’s album. In it they say that romances have an expiration date, although it is also dedicated to more ambiguous romances such as affection for a city or a song.
I marry you It emerged from their work on an album by Mexican León Leiden, when they met a serenade and trio musician in Monterrey who taught them how to play huapango. It is also inspired by the Mexican roots music of Natalia Lafourcade.
It’s a totally visceral story when you realize that you need a person and that you are willing to commit the folly of even getting married, Villamizar said.
One of the songs for which they had a colleague to compose is My psychologist’s noteswhich they created in Buenos Aires with Sandro Puente.
Buenos Aires is a city where everyone has a psychologist, Villamizar said.
Originally they made it as a vallenato, then Sandro made it more Argentine and in the end it was closer to the cumbia of the 1970s.
Last night mentions bad experiences with tequila.
“I have had a very close and intense relationship with tequila that, in fact, I am beginning to cool down,” Villamizar said. But hey, sometimes it makes you tell the truth and that’s important.
You have to respect tequila like you respect the sea, Lpes added.
Another Mexican aspect of the album is the art on its cover, made in Tijuana.
Bacilos was founded in Miami in 1997 by Villamizar, who is Colombian, Lpes who is Brazilian, and Puerto Rican Jos Javier JJ Freire. They released their first album in 1999 and stayed together until 2007, after which they took a decade-long break. They resumed their activity in 2017, although Freire retired from the project in 2021. They have been awarded two Latin Grammys.
We feel very lucky, very happy, our fans have been very loving to us, they have given us not only one opportunity, but two opportunities, said Lpes.
They continued to accompany us, listening to our music through the platforms, dancing to our songs at parties, weddings, divorces, he added. They fill us with energy to continue doing what we love to do, it doesn’t even seem like it’s been more than 20 years, it seems like it was yesterday that we played in bars in Miami.
Bacilos will perform in concert this weekend at the BB Auditorium in Mexico City. Later they will be in Madrid, Barcelona, in Spain, and Bogotá, in Colombia.
Bacilos is a Latin American band, Villamizar said. We feel comfortable in all the cities where our people are.
FUENTE: AP
