Rodrigo Guardiola, the rhythm of Zoé

The drummer of the Mexican band spoke about his seventh studio album, “Sounds of Karmatic Resonance”, and emphasized the effect that the coronavirus pandemic had on his creative process.

What will Zoé’s fans hear on this new album?

This is the seventh studio album that we released. For those who do not know, Zoé’s first album was released in 2001. We have already been publishing music for two decades and in the case of Sounds of Karmatic Resonance, it was produced by Craig Silvey, an American producer living in London (England), is one of the most recognized mixers in the world. We wrote the album at the end of 2019 and recorded it in a first stage with Silvey in January 2020. The second stage was planned for April, but the pandemic arrived and we had to postpone it.

How did they manage to finish recording the album during the pandemic?

That changed the history of the album, because it is the first time that we released songs without having the entire album ready, without having how to choose these songs within a totality. It seemed like a great gift for the people and also for us to be able to take refuge in these little musical escapes during the first months of the pandemic, which were very hard for everyone.

Where did the name of the album come from?

It emerged from the first stage of composition. At the beginning, it was a search for León Larregui, the singer of the band, on the theme of karma, and he found a term in English that he wanted to adapt to Spanish and it was made up of words … what we were looking for was for the album to be called just like the first single we released, which was SKR.

When were you able to resume the second stage of recording “Sounds of Karmatic Resonance”?

In October. He found us all very changed as people and as musicians … I think that each one experienced confinement in a very different way; some very terrified, others very calm, but it certainly added a lot of value to the fact of getting back together in the studio to work, it helped us to focus much better, to appreciate the process and we did the last six songs of the album, which have another color and other energy thanks to all that the pandemic has been.

What sounds make up this record production?

On this album you will be able to find Zoé’s most digestible and pop songs, but you will also hear darker, dense and experimental themes. There are electronic, psychedelic, experimental, British rock, pop, acoustic and many more.

How did the pandemic influence the final result of the album?

I feel like you notice a change in essence more than in sound … it also influenced a lot in the way we recorded the songs. Due to the limited time we had when we were recording in pandemic, the album was almost entirely recorded live. The three stages were done with the five musicians playing at the same time, and thus we found the composition, the arrangements, the structure and the character of each song.

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Why did you decide this was the right time to release “Karmatic Resonance Sounds”?

You don’t always feel so connected and inspired, but when the five of us feel that moment, we always take advantage of it. When we started building the demos, in 2019, we realized how close or far we were going to be from completing them … sometimes it takes us a year, sometimes longer. We let the tours allow us to focus our ideas and we work on them little by little.

What changes in this new album compared to the previous ones?

It changes everything, from the producer, which is a very important element in an album, to the recording, because, as I said, it is recorded live. The performance, the dynamics and the organic element of the music are generated live, they are not edited or manipulated after recording. Everything is done from its capture, with a sound aesthetic. The drums sound very transparent, there aren’t very big processes, but there is a lot of synthesizer layer, León [Larregui’s] lyrics are incredible on this album, and finally, the group’s maturity is something that is going to be very noticeable.