HORRIBLE: about Suarez (interview with Rosario Bléfari). When I think about "Suarez", HORRIBLE: about Suarez

(interview with Rosario Bléfari).

When I think about "Suarez", memories full of indescribable sensations come to my mind. It would be very difficult to find the words which could describe Suarez music. When you listen to them you don't know how to explain what you're listening to. Some people might say that Suarez is a rock band because they go against the grain. Other people would say that they are a Noise band because they are fond of loud blurry guitars. Others could say that they are an experimental minimalist pop band as not only do they work with the structure of the song, but also expand its boundaries. They also repeat simple structures over and over again. Suarez is composed by Gonzalo Córdoba (guitar), Marcelo Zanelli (guitar), Fabio Suarez (bass), Diego Fosser (drums) and Rosario Bléfari (vocals).

They have independently launched two albums: "Hora de no ver" (1994) and "Horrible" (1995). They have also recorded four tracks for a cassette which came out in "Ruido" magazine issue #1 and two other tracks for the "Ruido" album. Their two albums have been produced (actually non-produced) under a low fidelity recording concept. "Horrible" has this warning on its booklet: "Low fidelity sound is registered as one of the trademarks of F.A.N. (Feliz Año Nuevo discos). This album was processed with low fidelity sound. A signal without rivals and of a high technology. Low fidelity sound presents the listener with a new and multidimensional face of the recorded sounds when they are played on conventional stereo devices".

If you go to their concerts you'll never be bored because they are constantly changing their live performance..

I met Rosario Bléfari in a lovely sunny afternoon. She is not only a rock singer but also an actress (she took part in some plays and recently in the movie "1000 Boomerangs"). She is not like a rock star, she is extremely sweet and unaffected.

When I asked her for a description of their music, she told me that they didn't like to come under any kind of style. "Labels in music are generally managed by the press. Musicians and artists, in general, try not to be labelled because it ties them down to a certain range. It deprives them of the possibility to do something else".

Suarez is a self-financed and self-produced band. They first invested some money (from their savings) to independently edit their first CD. Then, the money was recovered and re-invested in a video clip ("Morirían") and a new CD. "We haven't invested extra money yet", declared Rosario. They hope to raise more money and go on developing new projects and some day organize "a big independent festival in a nice place, not depending on anyone, spending the record label savings". As she explains: "For us the independent thing comes because we don't want to make our projects and ideas depend on other people's time. It would be very frustrating. Although they don't work under any kind of commercial pressure, they have another kind of pressure: they want to be as sincere as possible with their music.

"What kind of music do you listen to?"

"Lately we have been listening to Sonic Youth, Hole, Helium, Pavement... But that's what I'm listening this week. I change very often".

What about Argentinian bands?

"I like La Nueva Flor (we record in the same studio, so I listen to them a lot), El otro yo (I love them) and Adrian Paoletti".

How do you write your songs? Do you write about something special?

"I write down things while I'm reading or doing anything that I keep on a file. When I want to write a lyric I look into the file and I make up the song. But I've realised that there's not a method because what works for one situation could not work for another. I am now on a lyric crisis. I want to write but I can't. I look onto the file and there's nothing useful on it. Maybe it's because I want to write a story and it distracts me. I hope the rest of the band think something up (laughs).

And how do you write music?

If I think something up, I play it with the guitar and record it on a tape. When we are together we go on developing it, but when we finish, the song is far from the original draft. Lately, we have found that exchanging our instruments is a good way of coming up with new songs.

Do you watch TV?

Yes. Sometimes I feel guilty about it. When I don't I watch it until my eyes hurt. I love "Magazine For Fai", "The Ren & Stimpy show", "The Simpsons" and "Alta comedia" because it is awful. Some friends of mine and I want to write the script of a chapter to play it ourselves. A friend of mine told me that she imagines things like cats instead of persons, having the same dialogues (laughs).

She explained to us that the structure of "Horrible" was made to balance things: "The B-side of the CD (the hidden bonus tracks) was made to balance the whole album because the first part is very tidy, track after track and the B side is very trash and untidy, everything is put together without an order.

The lyrics of "Horrible" seem to allude to journeys: a car in "Dos luces", a train in "Guantes de piel", a bike in "En la bicicleta"...

"Maybe the lyrics allude to means of transport because rock leads you to a similar sensation, a sensation of continuous movement and change. In a bus, for example, you sit down and you are still, but you are moving at the same time; you travel. When you are listening to music or in a concert you can travel too (figuratively speaking). That's something essential for rock". .

Mariano Lago

First published in The British Pocket (11/95)