The Colombian singer-songwriter trained in Berklee released “There was a time”, an album where she proposes an existence without attachments, cultivating love and designing strategies to know how to navigate when there is no wind.
There was a time is a record of evocations, an album that was made between 2019 and 2021, just when the pandemic put the world on hold. In the midst of this abrupt change, singer-songwriter Mónica Giraldo did not back down and continued with the production of her seventh album, which is now available on streaming platforms.
The career of this woman from Bogotá, who studied in Boston at the Berklee College of Music, is extensive. In 2005 he published the album Muy cerca and in 2008 Todo da vueltas , an album that gave him the Latin Grammy nomination in the category of Best New Artist, opening an important door in the music market. It also has the productions Que venga la vida (2014), Under the same sky (2017) and To the ear, The Best of Mónica Giraldo (2019).
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True to his style, framed in acoustics and starting from the voice and the guitar, it was how this profound sound journey was put together that tells us about the importance of living day to day, without attachments, cultivating love for what surrounds us. to know how to navigate when there is no wind.
Inspired by life and his travels through Colombia, Giraldo opens a window for us to listen to cumbia, bullerengue, folk songs, Peruvian waltz and that unmistakable stamp of a sensitive voice that carries a country deep in its heart. The album is published at a difficult time for Colombia, going through one of its worst social crises, added to the hopelessness sown by the global health emergency. Faced with this bleak panorama, the singer-songwriter offers us the best antidote to reunite ourselves: music.
“We started this album with the recording of Vamos por el Magdalena and we continue with a folk song called Something will change . I never imagined that everything was going to change, as the whole world entered the pandemic. In fact, music became important at that time to bring emotion and uncertainty to a healthy place and I started to have some digital music and poetry meetings with Pedro Rapoula, a great Portuguese friend. I felt that the music could not stop, so, with Mauricio Pantoja, producer of There was a time , we continued working and recording, at the rate that life allowed us, ”says Mónica Giraldo.
And about the creative process for her new album, the Colombian artist continues: “A trip to Portugal became the song All Things , which I recorded with the singer-songwriter Mafalda Veiga, and the launch was made by YouTube uniting worlds. Later, a bullerengue encounter became El hechicero, which we recorded between Barranquilla and Bogotá. In addition, a trip to the cumbia festival in El Banco (Magdalena) was the basis for the elaboration of Pajaritos de oro and thus the process continued until arriving at There was a time .
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google NewsAnd while Mónica Giraldo performed the warm sound production of the songs, visual scenes that could support the evolution of the register began to come to her head. Video clips, so important today, have their own anecdotes.
“Everything has been weird and beautiful … each song is truly dictated by life. There was a time is truly a reflective album that invites us to recognize the beauty and strength of music. If you listen to El hechicero you will be able to feel the force of the voice of Mathieu Ruz, of the new generations of the bullerengue, with whom we sing this song together, but if you lean towards Pajaritos de oro you will find an arrangement of cumbia winds full of energy by the great Pedro Ramayá Beltrán, although if you listen to All Things , with Mafalda Veiga, you will witness the cadence of the Portuguese in his voice and poetry ”.
On the particularity of other songs on his album, Giraldo stated: “ Pescador, lucero y río is a beautiful version that we did with Mauricio Pantoja and you will feel the greatness of the composition of José A. Morales. All this path of music that makes us feel good in the midst of uncertainty. This path of songs has been happening until I reached my guitar and my voice in the last song, There was a time , a song that recognizes this moment as something unique that we will always remember ”.
And how to remember is to live, there are three classics that are included in this new production, songs that are inserted in the hearts of Colombians and give an important weight to the repertoire by reviewing the proposals of composers such as José Barros, Jaime R. Echavarría and the Peruvian Mario Cavagnaro.
“Songs like Pescador, lucero y río , Noches de Cartagena and El rosario de mi madre are classics that are present in the musical tradition of my family, a Paisa family in which they sing with guitar and voice. I came to the world of classics after producing the album La voz de mi padre . Recording this album was a musical exercise that brought me closer to what I call ‘the Latin American feeling,’ “says Giraldo.
That Latin American feeling she speaks of has accompanied her for many years. Her songs have woven stories that seek to resignify the territory, the value of art, the transforming power that the word has when it is sung and she knows that it has a role in these moved times for the country.
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“My music has always been an act of recognition. I believe that we are part of a diverse and culturally rich country because of the way we mix between races to create what is now Colombia (indigenous, Spanish and African). My mission will be to continue learning from our music, to recognize the tradition to take a step forward that brings us closer to the diverse and beautiful Colombia that we are ”.
But not only in Colombia does the album stay. Portugal is present with All Things, recorded in collaboration with Mafalda Veiga, a native of that country; And I tell you for that , together with the Portuguese poet Filipa Leal. This is how a mature, successful album is completed, full of details and accompanied by the compositions of Mónica Giraldo, who has just contributed another important chapter to Colombian music.
Inspiration, reflection and intimacy are the components of an album that “is dedicated to life, which is no small thing”, as the singer-songwriter affirms.