MIMA Recital: The Essence of Puerto Rican Music with an Instrumental Twist
Yarimir Cabán, better known as MIMA within the Puerto Rican music scene, is setting the tone where the country’s vanguard music style is concerned. Her pieces, more than songs are poetic expressions with influences from folklore and her typical homemade style. Always exploring new sounds, MIMA is working on her third CD, which will be as different from the second as the second was from the first. On October 2nd she will be giving a unique and only presentation in Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, where, for the first time, her Boston audience will be able to enjoy an intimate recital as she explores the sounds of her current projects. We had the pleasure of interviewing her, she talked to us about her art, her experiences, and the origins of her creativity. Can you provide us with a small introduction to your style and genre of music? I tend not to cultivate a specific genre--I submerge myself into a creative process that results in albums. My first album was greatly influenced by instrumental jazz and the colors we can perceive from certain chords--for example, lots of major seventh chords, to contrast the sadness of some themes (which I got ten of from studying a Jobim song.) In my second album, I wanted to distance myself from the first by making it homemade and by collaborating with two artists who have influenced me deeply: Mark Underwood and Rita Indiana. I wanted to use a different poetic voice—to show a rawer but more conceptually elaborate aesthetic—but I also wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. My first ever experience recording was in a professional studio, which involves significantly different dynamics than a homemade environment can feasibly provide. Recently, I’ve been exploring direct influences of folk music--Jíbaro style--which has always unconsciously featured bits of the canción melódica. But I’m interested in the synthesis rather than the fusion, which entails a long process, because getting to the root of things to create simple solutions for complex concepts can become an obsession. Lacking the space to develop live shows is key in talking about style. In that sense, I’m more inclined towards theatre, but the immediacy of the music is so that the most natural option in my case is the acoustics of the domestic space and the enormous challenge of playing in bars in the middle of all the noise without being a punk band. If I could define it, It’d be a domestic style, because it’s in my home where I make the music first. From the intimate to the public there is a political tract that I have yet to explore with rigor. Puerto Rico is where I’ve been able to consolidate an audience, and although I owe a lot to my birthplace, I’d like the option of covering more ground. Where does the name “MIMA” come from? I was told there was another singer named Yarimir Cabán, same as me, who sang Christian hymns, of all things--and no one ever said my name right, anyway. It was always Yarimar, Yaritza, Judivette, Yaromir, Yahaira, etc., and in a somewhat cliche moment I was hit with the bright idea. It was the name of one of the first songs I wrote, way before I took out an album or even performed live, and when I was joking around with some of my friends they nicknamed me that. I liked it immediately because “Mima” is what they call the women in Cuba. And old people. I love old people. I feel a profound sort of compassion for them--I identify with them. I used to talk a lot to the old people in my neighborhood as a child, and I still do. In that moment, I saw myself as old as Chavela [Vargas], who is a strong and longstanding figure, and I thought to myself: if I could grow old singing and playing music I could be less alone, but I was young, and plenty more risky and naive than I am now. Can you tell us about your process when composing music? Well sometimes it’s very improvised, choppy and neurotic. Other times, it’s like eating a banana. I don’t have too many compositions. What I do frequently are arrangements, elaborate on decorations, and voice and overdub with my own voice. Normally I use a guitar or a piano to build chords or find melodies. I complement that a lot by sampling, since I sometimes need to find a beat that I can play with more without always having to be stuck on a guitar. Sampling has really given me a lot more leeway for creation. I can construct disposable drafts that I can use to search for a sound, and from there, begin to add and take away. What are your goals for the Puerto Rican music scene/in general? Learning to coexist and grow old with dignity, and to be able to share with diverse generations as well as artists from the island. What other contemporary (or older) artists do you currently admire Naming people is a trap because there will be a whole stream of people that’ll end up going unmentioned, but I would have loved to meet Tite Curet Alonso and hang out with La Calandria, Palés, and Chuíto el de Bayamón. As for living people, well, it’s a lot--but the work of Ivette Román has been crucial in gaining perspective, in many senses of the word. I think mostly of people in the island and the diaspora because those are the ones closest to me, and they teach me a lot. In general I admire artists who’ve succeeded in surviving the bureaucracy, the uprooting and and privatization of our culture, while maintaining a firm dedication to their artistic work and, in most cases, their service to others. I admire radical voices who subvert commodity and recognition, putting their soul into what they do in a way that is honest and devoid of any ulterior motives. We’ve been told that you wanted to do something different in this recital, can you tell us a bit about this initiative? It’s not exactly that I want to do something different, it’s that it’s been awhile since I’ve performed and it will be a punctual and unique event, since it came up in the midst of preparations for the next album. It’s been almost two years since I received IBA’s invitation to perform in Boston, but it wasn’t until now that we could make it happen. I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity--I’m both nervous and excited because this is the first time I come to Boston, a city that practically breathes music. I’m also going to meet cuatrista Fabiola Méndez, who I’ll be arranging two unpublished numbers for the recital that cite Luisito and Ramito el Cagueño, who I am to understand were distant relatives of hers. What can we expect from your performance? It’s always been tough dealing with expectations. What’s going to happen is simple: I will sit, as usual, with my guitar, between a bass and a sampling machine, with a percussionist I’ll meet in a few days. [embed]https://youtu.be/Dby-VCP4aBw[/embed] I’m meeting with Ariel Robles, who now lives in New York, and with whom I’ve had an extensive friendly as well as professional relationship with for the past ten years. We’ll also be collaborating with percussionist Kya Pérez, a Bronx Native, and Johannes Peters, from East Berlin, who now lives in Puerto Rico. Johannes will be in charge of sound design, equipped with ambient noises we’ve worked on to use in the recital. Its him who I’m collaborating with in the recording of new material, since I’m interested in revisiting a homemade approach, and Johannes’ work is dedicated to conducting ambient recordings for film as well as his solo project, Atmotron. I’ll go through some mostly unreleased songs, and one or two from my previous albums. Since we’ll be interpreting most of these themes for the first time live in this format, there’s a lot of work, nerves, and excitement involved in the preparations. Some of the themes will be aguinaldos and lamentos, there’s a seis celinés, a decimilla, and I’m toying with mounting a plena and a güembé in my style. In general, they’re new songs rewriting decimal metrics proposed by classic folk musicians while rescuing familiar elements that are of value to me, and translating them into a personal aesthetic. In the end it’s all about sharing the process that I’m in right now, with minimal support from the musicians and having a good time with the people that will come join us. What is your opinion on IBA as an organization and its mission to promote Latin American art in the United States? So far I’ve received amazing treatment, and I’m incredibly honored at the invitation. The history of IBA is a relevant one for Latino communities--as well as other minorities living in the U.S.--since it promotes not only Latino art, but the integration of our communities against the global threat of gentrification. Artists are largely responsible for these pre-gentrification dynamics, because our audiences and aspirations generate a specific impact in these communities--which is currently being debated. We must not lose perspective that promoting Latino art is not just a tendency, but a window looking into a history of struggle and inequality through which we learn to reformulate ourselves as individuals in our decisions, big or small. Which songs do you recommend we listen to in preparation for the recital in October? Listen to a Quinto al Aire, an Aguinaldo Orocoveño, a Seis Celinés, lots of Calandria, Bum Bum, guitar and cuero. A great performance awaits you the night of October 2nd at 7PM. Don't miss this one time only opportunity, tickets on sale here. ...