Is this concept exclusive to Son?
I think I had that before, but I didn’t realize it was that. When I started to work with loops live, four years ago, I was desperately looking for a machine to do that. It didn’t exist before. I would go into a music store asking for a machine that does this and they’d tell me they didn’t have such a machine. And then one said, “Oh! I just got this new machine.” And a week later, I bought a second one. And it was impossible to link them. So that’s why I started to play different loops in each other. So everything’s always moving. I started to make these kind of things and I realized that maybe I was in combination with nature. I don’t listen to much music because I enjoy so much to listen to what’s happening outside. And I don’t know why we have so many birds where I live. The birds on “La Verdad” are a kind of bird that always sing together. It’s a couple, and they call each other. It’s so beautiful and so powerful that I could stay there listening to that forever and I wouldn’t get bored.

What was that machine?
A Boss Loop Station RC-20.

Something else that might be unique to Son is the sound of your voice, using different layers and as a rhythmic tool as well.
That also comes from live shows, because one day I had a horrible accident that now I bless. We rented a keyboard for a show and it didn’t work. I was like, “What am I going to do?” So I started to sing what the keyboard should sound like and it worked. And I used that on the album. Because I program all the sounds, there’s one particular sound that I like a lot, which is the sound in the last song, at the very end of Son. You hit a note and wait five or six seconds and after that it goes, “Doooo” [changes pitch and bounces back between the change and the original] but then when you hit another note, it will do the same thing in a different tone. So after two or three notes, you have a drawing. I tried to sing like that with other musicians when I was in a band, but they didn’t get it and they were saying I was too accident … is that how you say it?

You seem like a very self-sufficient musician. Do you prefer working alone?
I think so, because I get into a mode that I’m not able to get in with others. I feel observed or watched. I feel on earth. And when I am on my own, I am somewhere else. It’s weird, the way that even if it’s me playing the music, I feel like the music leads me to do new things. There’s something that separates me from the music, and all of a sudden, I am following the music instead of the music following my feeling. Especially with keyboards. I program a sound and the keyboard tells me what to do. “You should make a curl over here and a square over there, and around and come back.” And so I do. It’s not me anymore.

I read a quote from you, “Technology must be a servant of music.” Do you still feel that way?
Yeah. It’s like when you go to the movies, and it’s overproduced and you see all the production instead of seeing the movie. That ruins the movie. I like when all the effects are there because they need to be there for the argument. And so you don’t see the production, you don’t see the money, you don’t see all the work they’ve done. You can think about it later: “I wonder. How did they do that? That was an amazing effect!” But if you see the effect before the real thing, then it’s poor and it doesn’t have any meaning. With the music, it’s the same. When I was looking for that machine, I really needed it, it wasn’t there, but apparently there were a lot of musicians with the same needs because they wouldn’t have made it if there weren’t. And I was so happy. It’s weird and funny, after I play a show, you can see people coming up to see how I did things. I was playing with a guy, he’s a very good musician and he wanted to have my mic, my guitar and my technical things that I have. I was trying to explain to him: You have to find your own tools. Sometimes, you get a new tool and it triggers lots of new ideas and it’s very good. But if you’re only looking for tools and only looking for new sounds and the technology is coming first, I don’t think you’re going very far. Maybe you are. But I always have the music first and then I try to figure out how to make it. I mean, I discovered technology when I had to play live.

It seems like the guitar is the foundation of the music, the constant element.
Yes, it’s true. It’s not meant to be, but it’s the way it is. Maybe because I’ve always played guitar and I’ve always had the guitar as a main instrument. I wouldn’t be able to play a show without a guitar, but I could play it without every other instrument. Even if the guitar plays the same loop during the song, I just have to think of other things to make the loop move so it’s not something that’s stuck. To me, a good loop is something that starts and stops again, like a wheel. It makes a whole loop, and it’s the same thing again, but it’s further along. A good loop is something you don’t feel as a loop. It’s something that drives you, that makes you flow. There are a lot of loops that are stuck and they restart over again. I’ve always felt the need of a loop and when I was a little girl, maybe 12, I remember sitting on the couch and playing the whole thing for hours and hours without getting bored. It was driving me somewhere.

You always write your lyrics last. I don’t speak Spanish, but it seems like your lyrics might be abstract.
Oh, I wouldn’t say abstract. I think they talk about very concrete things, but maybe the way I write them … when I’m writing a song, there’s a few words that come from who knows where. And these words belong to the song. So: sadness, table, girl, switch. These words in the song are like sounds and those images lead me to write a story about those words together. In general, I end by talking about human behavior and relationships between sister and sister, sister and brother, or mother and daughter. Very little things. I’m not trying to give any message. I’m just trying to fit the music with a nice story that could be true or not. But it is … I don’t know that word, either, versimil?

Possible.
Possible. And how do you call this song where you fight against something?

Protest song?
Protest song. I have one protest song, which is about progress and what we are doing with our beautiful things. But it’s just that one (“Sálvaese Quién Pueda,” from 2004’s Tres Cosas). Besides that one, we can say the lyrics are a little abstract, but not that much.

You have no interest in confessing, either? Talking about your personal life?
No, no, no. There’s a lot of “I”s in the songwriting, but it’s not about me. It’s just what I see or what I feel, but not necessarily true. I could say anything if it fits the song and the melody if it sounds good. The important thing is the way you say things, not what you say. You could talk about anything. It depends on the words you use, the way you see it and the way you say it. I know nothing about English lyrics, either, and I grew up listening to music in English. Even now that I speak English, when I listen to a song, I can’t pay attention to the lyrics. I hear the song as a whole. I never even liked singer/songwriters in my language whose words jumped out of a song. When the words are most important, it rather pisses me off. I’m not interested in messages.

You don’t like to be told what to think.
Exactly. I am just saying what I think. Not what you should think like. The first song on Son, the lyrics just came out. It says something like, “I don’t want to be with anyone that doesn’t want to be with me/I don’t want to be with anyone who has left/And my broken heart is like a dry river.” It’s very simple and the thing I like the most is that it came all of a sudden from who knows where, the guitar and the vocal.

The album title means “they are?”
It also means music. A “son” is a pleasant sound. And you also have the son cubano, which I think is a rhythm. It’s Cuban music. But, yes, “are.” The title song talks about what things are. You can’t blame things for being. A storm is. An earthquake is. Happiness is. Beauty is. And I am very thankful for being without any feelings of guilt. So that’s why I named the record that, because it is. It’s just a record and nothing’s gonna change it. I was afraid a little bit to call it that, because I didn’t want people to read it like, “my son,” but Domino advised me that that wasn’t a problem. I didn’t want to have people thinking I was having this record as my son. That has such a different meaning. But I said, “OK, I’ve always written in Spanish, so I don’t have to be that concerned.” But I was sure that was going to happen. “Is this record her baby?”

Do you see your music as being quiet music? And do you think quiet is a powerful thing?
Yes. I think it’s powerful, but it’s not loud. I think this record is the loudest. It’s just a matter of an intention, of an attitude. It’s not actually louder than anything I’ve done before, but it has a loud attitude. It has nothing to do with heavy metal or hardcore. I was trying to avoid the quiet and feminine side of some quotes that have been said before. What I don’t like about that is that when you whisper, you did it on purpose. But if you have a soft voice, you aren’t whispering. It’s the way you speak.

I read in an interview that you don’t reveal your age.
It’s a prejudice that I have. But I’m trying to skirt others’ prejudice. In my career, I’m at the point where I should be 30, at the most. I’m largely past the 30s. I’m also always afraid that people could think that what I do isn’t good enough because I’m not young enough. The image of rock or popular music is the image of a very young girl, or a very young boy with a lot of strength. Because I had a totally different career for a long time, if I had started when I had to, maybe I would be doing something different already. It’s something I have to deal with and learn and be OK with, but I couldn’t reveal it. I just couldn’t. So I’d rather have people guess. I don’t think it’s relevant, either. Either the youth is inside or not. I can’t believe how old I am, because I don’t feel old. You grow up, and you’re 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. But you are still 20, even if you are 40.

How is it being a musician and raising a daughter?
Thanks to her, I am doing what I am doing. I got a bad beginning of my pregnancy and I had to stay in bed and I had the time to realize I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing and that I was going to die and get really old without doing what I wanted to be doing all my life. Just because I was shy. It was a barrier that I had to break. I’m not a shy person, but I really couldn’t play in front of anyone. It look a long, long time to get over. So it’s because I had to stay in bed for almost three months with nothing to do that I got the time to see my future and my past and my present.