Mexico City-based folk songsmith Silvana Estrada grew up near the mountains of Veracruz. Her parents are luthiers, and their business brought many musicians who would test and jam on myriad stringed instruments, steeping the young Estrada in Latin American music and jazz.
As a teenager, she studied in a university jazz conservatory and eventually found herself playing and collaborating with artists like Charlie Hunter and Snarky Puppy’s Michael League. She also toured with Rorigo y Gabriela and collaborated with well-known Latin American artists like Natalia Lafourcade, Jorge Drexler and Mon Laferte. Though Estrada eventually moved to Mexico City, her roots remain clear. Traces of son jarocho, regional music of Veracruz, can be heard throughout her songs, and her parents' workshop is the backdrop of her Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts performance. Her childhood was the inspiration for one song (“Casa”) on her new album, Marchita.
“Marchita” translates from Spanish as “withered,” and the album chronicles the pain of heartbreak and the bittersweet growth of subsequent healing. Songs like the title track and “Tristeza” (or “sadness”) are reminiscent of the somber and passionate lyrics of Latin American singers like Chavela Vargas. Others, like “Sabré Olvidar,” or, roughly, “I’ll Learn to Forget,” show that Estrada is not planning to wallow in that sadness for too long.
Marchita, released Jan. 21 via Glassnote Records, is a gorgeous sampling of her vocal and instrumental talents, and its minimalist nature proves that Estrada doesn’t need to hide behind production. She and the other musicians she collaborates with demonstrate prodigious talent on instruments ranging from the Venzuelan cuatro to the organ to the flugelhorn and beyond. Estrada’s tour for the record stops at City Winery on Tuesday, Feb. 1, and the Scene caught up with her via Zoom.
Marchita is your first full-length solo album. What are you most excited about and what are you maybe nervous about?
Well I'm really excited to just share, finally, this music. I feel like I've been working on this album for two years now and it feels like it's [been] even more. To have all this music just for me and for my team and for all the people who worked on this album, it's too much. We all want to share, finally, this music and to actually let people connect with these songs that mean so much to me. And that's probably what is the most exciting thing about this.
But then what makes me nervous about this? … Of course, I have expectations of my own, but I tried to keep my brain focused, like ‘no, don't start to dream about what do you want, just wait until it happens.’ What makes me nervous, it's really to actually bring this music in this COVID world. … It's changing all the time. I was actually, just a week before, I was supposed to be performing at New York in this festival … releasing Marchita, and now because of COVID, it’s canceled and I'm in Mexico City.
And then we thought of a lot of things that we could actually do here in Mexico City like, “Oh, let's have this little intimate performance, and this kind of pop-up moment in this gallery.” But now that that's not [possible] because of the COVID, so that makes me nervous. I have a plan and since two years now, I've been like everybody — doing plans and then cancel them. So that scares me a little bit. But I'm also really happy so I'm not thinking of that too much.
Your songs are very emotional and the way you sing them is very emotional. Is it ever hard for you to enter or exit that emotional space when you're playing or singing your music?
Not really. Sometimes it's hard, because you don't want to be talking about your heartbroken experience all the time. But at some point, you need to learn that they are only songs, and those songs are only like ways to enter your own soul. And your own emotions are just doors that you need to open — and cross through — in order to actually connect with your heart and with your expression and with your sensibility. … That's something I learned two or three years ago when I was touring a lot in Mexico and America, South America and Spain. … Every time that I sing I feel like I take my heart out of my body and it's really intense. For me, it's really also like [a magic trick]. It's not that it's not truth, but it's not the reality of my actual state of mind. … It's more like, connect and then disconnect.
In your Tiny Desk Concert you say that “Marchita” is one of your favorite songs to play. Can you tell me more about why?
Well, probably because it’s the one that is most vocally demanding for me, because it is really a strong song to sing. It moves, the melody moves so much and it's high and then low, and then it's really loud and then it's really quiet. A lot of things are happening in that song and it’s also really important that I kind of sustain the song by myself. Sometimes I have a string quartet, [but] most of the time I don't have it, so I have to sing that song by myself. And that makes that song even more special to me because it's like a of statement of power and strength and also vulnerability.
Every time that I sing that song, I allow myself to be vulnerable. Because I'm singing just by myself and I'm trying all those melodies and sometimes something can go wrong or be different from what I'm thinking and doing. And that vulnerability also gives a lot of power and strength to the performance, I guess.
You're influenced by Latin American singers like Chavela Vargas, Violeta Parra and Soledad Bravo. What are some aspects of their music that you're intentionally pulling from? What are some aspects that you're maybe trying to move away from?
I guess I really connect with folkloric music and with, of course, Mexican and Latin American music. I love almost everything about that aesthetic. But I guess I'm trying to find a way of singing and performing the way that I'm doing — I mean, being honest and having the ability of moving people, but maybe with more simple ways of singing. One of the things that I'm trying now that I'm actually working [on] in another album is to simplify my own singing and my own vocals, trying new ways of interpreting songs. I feel like now, I've been working, very visceral with all my inner strength.
And every time I feel like the image that I have of myself when I'm singing is like I'm l on fire here in my chest. … And right now I'm trying to try new things. Just trying to keep myself like — what happens if I sing with more calm in myself? What happens if I also open that door of sadness, but with more inner peace? Maybe it's completely subjective, but that's my goal right now.
You've also worked with a lot of really talented and contemporary musicians like Natalia Lafourcade and Jorge Drexler. What has playing with them taught you about creating and performing music?
A lot of things. Only to see them work, it's like a whole Masterclass. Every time that I'm [near] Natalia … just to be able to see how she thinks and how she does the things she does, I learn so much. It's like a lot of knowledge and she's so wise. And also Jorge Drexler is like this encyclopedia. … He knows everything about everything. And every time that I'm speaking with him, I'm learning so much. Not not only about songs — I've been learning a lot about how to write a song just getting to know him — but a lot of things.
He’s a man who actually can speak about almost every subject, and that's really important to me, because as an artist, you need to reach yourself, your soul, with so many things — with movies, with poetry, with experiences, with history, you know? But what I can say about these two people … Natalia and Jorge, is that the most important thing is the humbleness that they have to me, like how they work just for the music. Even if they are famous, or they have these crazy, long tours, they're just working because the music is the most important thing. And they're like, every time, redefining the concept of what a song has to be, so that's something that I really respect.
If there was any musician, dead or alive, that you could make a song with, who would it be?
That's really hard, but probably Leonard Cohen. Right now, I'm all about Leonard Cohen. And I love his poetry.
Earlier you were talking about history and other non-musical things that go into your process. What are some non-musical things or people who really inspire your music?
A lot of poets inspired my music, mostly women, like Alejandra Pizarnik or Idea Vilariño. And a lot of filmmakers … I’m trying to think [of] Mexican ones. I don’t know, I guess also Paul Thomas Anderson or … [Alfonso] Cuarón, for example, [Guillermo] del Torro and [Alejandro González] Iñárritu. There you are, the famous three ones.
Your parents are luthiers and you grew up around all kinds of instruments. Are there any that you’d like to see more in mainstream music?
Probably the double bass. My dad, he builds double basses and that's one of my favorite instruments. Every time that I have the possibility to have a double bass on stage, I always choose that possibility. It's an instrument that I love, and the sound, it's so special. Every good song and every good live performance needs a heart. Like this idea of low frequencies, it's like a heart … the heart of the music, and to me that's the double bass. And my dad, he's really good. He does beautiful double basses. And that's something that I really admired, the capacity to just have this piece of wood, and then [make] this enormous instrument that is almost like a closet. It's crazy.
Is there anything in particular about Nashville that you're looking forward to?
Everybody is like, “Nashville is super cool, you need to go there, you need to meet the musical scene.” I really want to actually go to a jam session or something. … I really want to know what's going on musically there in Nashville, and it's my first time there.
