Natalia Lafourcade has made a name for herself among female voices in Mexico, where she has been considered a star since she released the hit hit Hasta la raíz in 2015 before embarking on a journey through her musical influences that resulted in four double albums (Muses and A song for Mexico) the last of which was already published in the middle of the pandemic. Having overcome this stage of forced recollection, the singer-songwriter from Veracruz launches De todas las flores, an album where she reflects on the emotional fall and resurrection suffered throughout these years. Now she lands in Spain to present her work with a beautiful and at the same time controversial participation in the tribute to Carlos Saura during the Goya awards gala, where she interpreted the iconic Por qué te vas, by Jeanette.
The Goyas have made him known.
How nice, it was a great experience with a lot of respect and a lot of love, for Saura but also for Jeanette, who might be the one who should be there. If I had been in her shoes I would have done the same, even at that moment. It was very nice to see her sing a cappella at her funeral, saying goodbye to Carlos. I think Jeanette is a wonderful woman, I've known her for a long time and her music is an influence in Mexico, we know her a lot.
It had been a while since I had come here to sing.
I wanted to take a break from traveling and shows, not from music, and with the pandemic, four years have passed since the last time I came (it was in Barcelona, in the Apolo room in 2018). I also did not play in Mexico, where I have only given two concerts this year. I want to take it easy, not go on tour just because we already have the album out.
This decision represents a change in his life.
Very important things have happened in my life and I wanted to take some time. I got married this year, and I performed at the Royal Carnegie Hall, where we also recorded a live album that had to end with a lot of love and a lot of calm.
He has also done a podcast.
Yeah, as a producer, directing it, and I didn't know how much time that involved. I love it, there are twelve episodes and it's like a sound film, as laborious as making a record with seven hours of content. We are also making a documentary and I am going to release a book. I didn't want to mix these pretty things with the madness of traveling on a tour.
Did all these projects arise as a result of recording De todas las flores?
Yes, I wanted to make this record together with all these sister projects, I just didn't realize how much work it was going to involve, I don't do it anymore (laughs). Although they sent me photos of the book yesterday, they have just printed it, and that makes me very happy. So many years have passed since I made my own album that I wanted to deliver things to my fans, I wanted to be able to tell them the story behind these songs in a different way.
Your followers find a different music, more interior and reflective, to please you before others.
In Hasta la raíz there was a desire to make others part of the album, with a lot of work from the producer, Cachorro López. In De todas las flores it was different, I wanted to work with Adán Jodorowsky in the production and collaborate with musicians that I greatly admire in a different way than anything I've tried before. Then came the rules of the game: record everything analog, on tape, like it was done in the old days, those records that I like to hear so much, so warm. We are going to record live and direct, without clicking, everyone playing at the same time without too many rehearsals, allowing improvisation. Let's see what magic happens. And there Adán pushed me to the limit, he only allowed me demos of four songs that had brass arrangements, but for the rest, “don't make demos”, he told me. For my part, it meant rehearsing a lot, being prepared to be able to play and sing at the same time.
It takes confidence to record like this.
It is one of those challenges that allows you to see that you are capable, and to know that there is a different way of approaching music. I really celebrate the shape of this record, zero condescending, allowing us to drag out the songs, not worry about getting on the radio.
Do you plan to work like this from now on?
You never know, each record has its own spirit. This work is very personal, like a diary. I had many doubts and before recording I showed my songs to David Aguilar, co-author of two of them, he told me that if I didn't record I would be stuck and unable to leave. I had to record these songs in order to get through this time in my life.
He is very clear about where each song comes from.
It's like a movie, I even thought about making one from the record. If I had known about Carlos Saura, perhaps I would have told him (laughs).
How did you order them?
I almost, almost did it as they came. Since I record almost everything I compose on my phone, I was able to record the dates, and even remember where I did it. Although De todas las flores I don't remember where I made it, I just sang it three tones higher than it was at the end, and then came a long job to find the tone for my voice in that song.
A very calm voice, it fits well with Viene solita.
Those were the first two, the oldest. Now when you listen to Of all the flowers knowing it, you are clear that everything is born from there, from a fracture, a heartbreak pain. And how that grief is transformed into a reconciliation of self-love.
"Today I am reborn grateful after dying my war," she says in Llevame viento.
It is a time of my life that music encapsulates, they are stage photographs. But then that belongs to the people, there is a stage in which the songs stop being mine, I share them with other people, they appropriate them and I can't control what happens. From then on my way of interpreting them, of singing them, is already from another place, and revisiting those moments is very beautiful.
The album has a sad first part that turns into joy.
It starts down and bounces up, like currents. When I started in 2020 I had almost all the songs, but then I began a process to understand everything I had, and from there make a circle, conclude. They couldn't just be sad songs anymore, there had to be joy because I was already entering another place. Apart from 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, it was a year in which I was able to confront a certain fear of entering the studio, there was a fear. And there dance helped me confront that abyss. I signed up for contemporary dance classes, which allowed me to get in touch with the elements. All of that became part of my processes to understand where the music was taking me, and the record absorbed all those experiences.
He spent this stage in his native Veracruz during the pandemic.
It was quite a kind confinement, but although I was in the countryside, in a paradisiacal context, inside me there was a lot of noise. I started my musical career at the age of 17, and only stopped at the age of 21 when I went to Canada. Since I returned to Mexico, I had never stopped: concerts, recording, records, tours and everything that the music industry implies. Suddenly I returned to my house, and for me it was at the same time a paradise but also the place where I didn't even know how to turn on the stove. I was not in my own home, and that revealed to me some internal sadness with which I did not know how to deal. It was interesting for me to see it, inhabit that discomfort and get out of it through my own exit inventions, my own rehabilitation. It was so strong that I even got sick, I was so used to singing and radiating my energy that I had it all contained. He was able to get out through dance, and that's when I was able to work on my music. That marked Of all the flowers, it has all the cadence of the dance. This stage helped me to find my own way of shaping the music, and to find how to fit everything together. For me music is a home, there is no other place like the calm that music gives us.
The song De todas las flores responds to the breakup of a toxic relationship in 2018. Has your perspective changed since then?
Both women and men have to open our eyes and hearts a lot. They have given us an idea of what love is, a concept that is very distorted from what it really is. Today love is scary. How can it be, of such a beautiful thing? Love is not only with a partner, it is everywhere, in nature, in life there is love. In the field of women we must learn to take care of ourselves, to love ourselves, to have self-esteem. But also men, who for a long time have been told that they must be in a certain way. Can't men really cry, feel? We cannot be pigeonholed, we are a soul that wants to experiment, and if we pigeonhole we go to hell.
Are you going to tour this year?
Yes, but we are seeing where the tours are going. We performed at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, also at the Botanical Garden in Madrid. We are preparing the tour and more dates will come in Europe and Latin America.
