“What was bitter now tastes like honey. I fall asleep thinking about all these years. Now is the time to let myself be.” It’s been a while since Natalia Lacunza (25) changed his way of relating to fear: he no longer avoids it, but looks it in the eyes. And in that act of rebellion she finds the place from which he can create his songs. He is perceived in those that make up his latest EP, STAND, and in those to come. He tells us this a few minutes before performing alongside Cariño and Gus at Trainfest, the first Trainline-powered festival in a train station. Specifically, that of Príncipe Pio, in Madrid. This concert marks the singer’s return to the stage after a brief, but healing time of rest.
The artist said goodbye to the summer by announcing her decision to take a brief break, since, after her departure from Triumph operation In 2018, his life has been non-stop. In 2019 she released her first album, Other Wings (2019), and then they came ep2 (2020) y It has to be for me (2022). Finally, in September of last year, it came out STAND. In this time, the Pamplonica has deepened its sound, framed in a sophisticated electronic pop that could take another form at any time, since it does not like to marry specific genres. She has also collaborated with artists such as Juicy BAE, Guitarricadelafuente, Ana Mena, L’haine, trashi o mori, a long list to which new names will surely be added.
Have five months been enough to disconnect?
I needed to take a short break, especially from bowling, because it was all happening at once. She’s out STAND, we went to Mexico and I decided that for a few months there had to be a closure of doors. But here we are again! I am very excited because, in addition, STAND We haven’t done much work on it and it’s a job that I want to give importance to. This year, with Trainfest, I inaugurate the season. I don’t know how to sit still for long. We are also already preparing the album.
What can you tell us about him?
It’s still in the embryonic process, but it’s going to be very cool. It will have a mix between new songs and other things that were left fallow. There were about 50 demos that were not going to be released and that are good, they have cool things. In the end, I am the same: there are things that I still maintain.
You collaborated with Diego 900, who released an album after more than two years without releasing anything. He said recently that he takes his work very seriously and that is why he prepares it in a calm manner. In an industry that requires you to be publishing songs all the time, how do you cope with the discipline that is required of artists of your generation?
I agree with what Diego says. Music is not mathematical: it is made of emotion and time. To make songs you need to live experiences, go through different selves and complete a very large arc of sensations that help you create. The industry is what it is and that, whether you like it or not, affects you. Although I am not influenced as much by its operation as by the pressure I put on myself. I have a lot of energy inside, I’m doing things all the time, and I need to make the moves. Sometimes I have a topic that I love and, if I don’t bring it up now, I feel like I’m overdoing it, but I try to have a balance. Obviously, I am never going to release something that is not in development, because I am very demanding and I look for what comes out to have substance, although it is true that I go quite fast. I have a lot of fluidity, I am composing a lot. I want to take advantage of this moment of creativity.
There are artists who pigeonhole themselves into a genre, while others avoid being confined. For some time now you have been moving between some sounds and others.
I feel freer than ever, because I am facing the demons I live with, those voices that tell me that I am not worth enough. What I do to combat that thought is work to death. Fear must be overcome, because the good is after it, always. I’m in a moment where I’m letting myself flow creatively a lot, without limits, without genres and playing a lot of different styles. I’m not afraid or wondering if it will be okay. If there is something you need to get out, it is for a reason, and you don’t have to question it so much.
“Fear must be overcome”
When in doubt, shock therapy…
Yes total. If you have incredible anxiety and you have a gig, you have to go out anyway. So, you have to overcome that fear somehow.
You’ve said before that you like your songs to have depth. When do you know that a song is already finished?
I have an instinct. When something is done I get a feeling of fulfillment (realization, in English), you know? My chest feels full when I hear it, and that’s when I decide that I’m not going to fix it anymore. There is that work of the goldsmith, of looking at many details…
Are you a perfectionist person?
Yes. Rehearsing STAND I always thought that some songs would have had new things added to them. And the same thing happened to me on the previous album. The good thing is that live you can always put different things in and play with that flexibility. Perfectionism is something that is intrinsic to this profession, I think. We are all a little crazy.
Is that why you say your music sounds like “post-adolescent delirium”?
Total! And my new one is like that too, because I think we live in this state constantly. Even my mother is still there a bit, in a sense.
What is it like to live in that state?
I think you come out of adolescence and feel like every year you enter a different loop. You have to continually fit things in in a process that never ends. This is a theme that I like to serve as the common thread of all my work.
Do you find answers in the songs?
Yes. For me, writing songs is a way of understanding. The other day I was listening It has to be for me, and I thought I could have written it now. Music serves to close concepts. From an emotion, which is something that you cannot quantify, that has no logic, you can turn it into a song. You solve unknowns, you connect the dots… and all of this ends up reaching a conclusion.
“Writing songs is a way of understanding”
Is it possible to write a song without even thinking about your own experiences?
I think so, and there are many people who do it, but it is very difficult for me. Right now I’m trying to write in the third person and stop thinking about my moves. I want to get rid of my ego and write things from another point of view. The problem is that I make music because I need to express myself. I have always worked like this, and it is true that the songs that move me the most are those that have a story, an internal narrative.
In one of your last songs, P.D.P., you sing: ‘sorrow of the past no longer hurts me’. What doesn’t hurt you anymore?
Say goodbye. Before I felt very guilty for saying ‘no’, and sometimes with that you end up putting yourself down. You have to learn to let go of things, because you cannot feel committed to absolutely everything that happens around you. You have to follow your will, after all. Before I gave my heart to anyone, but my heart is mine.
LinkedinBeloud