Cumbia is the new punk.
Karen and the Remedies He launched Silence, their first full-length album consisting of nine songs and two Bonus Tracks. Regarding the launch, we spoke with Ana Karen, the voice of the project.
Start describing Karen It is complex but necessary to understand the reason for his music. The story of Karen and the Remedies it started when Karen moved to Guanajuato and tasted the fortune and challenges that come with becoming an independent woman.
I had to support myself and all that so I sold sweets, like I sold underwear, sometimes bags, I worked in a bar, I took care of children.”
Until music began to appear in her life, thanks to a close friend who motivated her to sing covers in bars. It’s not that music hasn’t been in her life before, in fact…
Since I was in high school I made songs in my head or something like that, like my first heartbreak, I made a song… I thought it was something that all people made in their heads.”
Finally, music found fertile ground in the creativity of Karen, who began to sing his own compositions.
I was always a closet reggaeton fan and I also loved cumbia since college but at that time it was not fashionable, so I felt very misunderstood.”
Time has passed since then and Karen and The Remedies Now it is a solid project made up of the producer Jiony and the guitarist Guillermo Berbeyer (ZAMPA). A trio of musicians who have managed to maintain themselves despite the distances, among them, the fact that Karen moved to China.
The sound of Karen and the Remedies It has been defined as psychedelic cumbia, futuristic cumbia and neocumbia, among other names…
In my family we listen to a lot of cumbia and Christmas always ended with dancing cumbia, and I arrived and told Jiony on one of my trips to Mexico: you have to do cumbia.”
About Silence, Karen reflect:
It’s just like a pause, it’s like hearing maybe things that you don’t usually pay attention to and suddenly they are there and they are important. It talks about connecting with yourself and being loyal to who you are, regardless of the expectations outside.”
However, releasing a complete album from start to finish requires courage in times where accelerated modernity threatens patience and calm.
Within this modern chaos of things that are ephemeral, I also think that making an album is a bit rebellious because really nowadays it benefits more to the singles as collaborations. Many times there are artists who release each song single by single precisely for that; and right now we are living that reality that the work of curating a complete album is no longer so appreciated and I think that, well, it seems important to me and we are doing it. I think releasing a full album is like something very punk.”
The album cover Silence of Karen and the Remedies was taken on a motorcycle trip Karen made with William.
We left Guanajuato, passed through San Miguel de Allende, passed through mineral wells and entered some small towns that are heading towards the Querétaro mountain range, our intention was to spend a day there.”
But the bad weather didn’t help and the rain, somehow, forced them to stay in a place that later became the space that would be immortalized on the cover of their first album.
It was super nice because there were almost no people, this place is very well taken care of and further up the river there are axolotls, so it was a super nice place for me, the light was very cool and it took William “There were several photos and I liked this one because it was a little moving, it wasn’t posed, I felt like it looked like a painting.”
Although there are still no scheduled dates to see Karen and The Remedies In Mexico, their new album is now available on all platforms. Enjoy Silencean album that shows that cumbia is not dead and that you can sing to melancholy and dignity with a tropical rhythm.
