Ferna, bassist and guitarist for Little Jesus, surprises us with his first album that is just as playful and cryptic. With a first-person narration that does not discriminate against any idea, Fernando Bueno Botello is the witness and narrator of a story that seems to have been told to some intimate friend in Me, Ferna.
Little Jesus’ three studio albums can give us an idea of Ferna’s tastes, but it is until this album that we know him more. She decided to open up a lot, expressing their worries and anxieties about current lifeall oscillating between indie rocka bit of folk and many winks towards him rock psychedelic.
Ferna takes us by a personal and uncensored journey
Fernando made a trip to Berlin in 2021, in which he decided to compose songs for himself for a month that they did not seek more than to expose what was going through his head at that time. And from there it came Me, Fernathe first album of his solo project.
Ferna’s debut album was recorded in Nils Frahm’s Saal 3 studio inside Funkhaus, and later, together with Santiago Mijares (a recent member of Little Jesus and Sanje as a soloist), they dedicated themselves to producing the album. At the end of last year, production on Sam Owen’s (Big Thief, Sam Evian) Flying Cloud wrapped.
The history of the album tells us as a warning that this album was made by Ferna for himself, that the ideas that come to mind are captured as they go, without any kind of censorship of his own to please others. The result is a surprising album, with unexpected and varied sounds, and a very personal chronicle that seeks to escape hackneyed themes.
It is a dialogue with himself, perhaps hence the two different voices heard on the record. Sometimes it is difficult to listen to aphorisms that are repeated over and over again such as “I miss so many seeing them well” o “Pure good things for Andrea”which suppose a predisposition of the listener to listen for vocal minutes in loop.
The space between dreams and reality the Ferns
In just under an hour, we noticed that Ferna’s thoughts, her dreams and the contrast with what happens to her in real life, are the raw material for the 18 songs that she presents to us.. In “What’s up? /re:nothing”, Ferna singing opens with “I’ve always thought that I don’t know how to sing”on a simple but catchy bass base, in an atypical confession for a musician.
This open letter to the world with which he lives can be defined as a manifesto of what comes without a filter to his head. “I’m looking for a head” is perhaps the subject in which we notice more clearly Ferna’s disorientation, and in which we identify with the feeling of being lost in a dream that seems true.
In her story about being awake and asleep, Ferna tells us “It’s been two nights since I get up at three” at “04:15”. Apparently, He relates that one is always in crisis, in trying to translate what happens around us, and carrying the daily routine as a permanent weight.
Ferna gives us a lot of space to define a sound identity
In a record that expresses the sense of search for textures, Ferna mainly includes well-worked synthseither as leads or in support, perhaps it is what distinguishes your project from your previous works. The sleepy voice contributes to the sensation of listening to the content of a very long dream, and this is done with all the intention.
From the banjo on “Lesson”, a children’s choir in “Luna Rosa”, going through songs built on synthesizers and guitars as in “Ya No Comemos + (O)’s”, Ferna shows a sound that flirts with the lo fi, he rock soft and pretty psychedelic folk. As immediate references, we think of the influences of Mac DeMarco and Mild High Club.
In “Sometimes, Always” Ferna tells us about “Very good toquines in the Imperial”followed by the chorus “I can’t find myself anymore”a rolota that has Ferna’s stamp, with varied vocal support and that are very funny throughout the album.
The seamer, which gives the album its name, is the self-affirmation of who Ferna is. Aurally, with bongo-like percussions and flashes of synths, noIt is clear to you that Fernando decided to play a lot with the instruments he mastered in his debut.
This album is full of personal references, to the late Imperial, to his obligations to his band and his family, and to confronting adulthood and society. The winding songs and the sudden changes, as well as the interludes, they are for an attentive listener to what Ferna has to say, without expecting something close to dancing or catchy rhythms and lyrics.
