White Vinyl
Mexico city based, Guatemalan cellist Mabe Fratti debut LP, Pies Sobre la Tierra (Feet On The Ground), on experimental label Unheard of Hope (Peter Zummo, Military Genius). Reconciling Mabe’s steps throughout her musical past, the debut LP features pop and experimentation that reflects her time working amongst the improvisation scene in Mexico City. Mabe Fratti’s sensibility is the triumph of experimentation over technical dominion of an instrument. The experimentation of sound with feelings, with existence itself, with an open heart, letting herself to be transformed by what she lives and hears. This is what has led Mabe Fratti from Guatemala to Mexico City. From the creation of pop songs to free improvisation, from the academy to noise, from collaborations in ensembles and duos to the profound personal journey that is reflected in her solo works. That’s why Mabe’s music converts us to sensible sounding boards: through a hypnotic and captivating performance, Mabe sews contemporary elements like shoe gaze and dream pop with ancestral influences that go from Gregorian chants to Sephardi music, transforming them in ingredients of a potent sonic ritual that causes a profound emotional impact. After collaborating with various artists, Mabe wanted to return to her solo works with the desire to create an album as a whole, not just a collection of tracks. Pies Sobre la Tierra was recorded in Fratti’s room with a Komplete Audio 6 and a MXL 4000 microphone during the first five months of 2019. She used her cello and vocals as protagonists in the instrumentation. Parallel to this, she used synthesizers, field recordings and she outsourced noise with the help of collaborators Concepcion Huerta and Mito del Desierto. Lyrically, she was inspired mostly but not entirely by Murphy by Samuel Beckett. The reason why the album is called Pies Sobre la Tierra (Feet on the ground) is because Mabe wants to refer to the conciliation of the space that we consider mental with the “physical” and “real”. However, even though there’s a sensation of separation, there’s also a unity to which we’re bound to observe through a lens and operate on it through assumptions and intentions.
