Beyond labels and preconceptions, the truth in Mabe Fratti’s music is only realised when you listen to it. It happens beyond categories, words, and ideas about what crossing experimental/avant-garde music with pop means. Some say that the future of music lies here, it doesn’t have to be like this – or so heavy – Fratti’s music moves, breaks, through the intensity of its existence. He visited us recently as part of the collective Amor Muere, another reference in these crossings of genres that make us think about the future. The fact that you carry so much of that energy as a solo artist and as part of a collective justifies us suspecting that something is running through you, coursing through your veins, and reaching our ears, our hair.
The association with Arthur Russell is easy and straightforward. And we’re not the ones making it, they talk about it elsewhere, it’s only natural. Firstly because of the cello, his instrument of choice; then because of the delicate existence of notes and how they transform unexpectedly and, finally, the desire to experiment beyond the obvious, crossing and re-crossing ideas that go beyond the concept of musical genres. The three albums he has released so far, “Pies Sobre La Terra” (2019), “Será Que Ahora Podemos Entendernos” (2021), and “Se Ve Desde Aquí” (2022), are now joined by “Sentir Que No Sabes”, which he will present in Lisbon at B.Leza. The fourth full-length continues the inspiration route in an exemplary combination of experimental and contemporary and a pop/soul voice that reminds us of Rosalía cycling up the mountain with the heaviest gear: because this life can’t just go forward with motomamis.
The beauty of Mabe Fratti and this “Sentir Que No Sabes” lies in her willingness not to slow down; she continues to invent, innovate, and follow a brave path that doesn’t stop at formulas that follow the times. In this, she has shown herself to be much bolder than many of her contemporaries, resisting fashions, processes and letting experience take the place of the unpredictable. As we said at the beginning, what happens in her music can be heard, it exists beyond description: to listen to her is to coexist with surprise, a constant and unexpected rupture. The beauty of music without forced categories, which remains naive and curious no matter how much experience it gains. It opens doors without wanting to, it makes us feel in seconds the most beautiful light as absolute terror. The roaring twenties are also made of this, music that still doesn’t fit on the shelves and that manages to elevate everything it touches. Including us. AS
