By José Gandue @Gandour
It's a beautiful story: A Chilean woman (Loreta) meets an Argentinian man (Víctor) at a concert in Buenos Aires., They fall in love and decide to travel the world together, and while traveling they build an amazing musical project called Infinite Ice Cream.
His first album, Scattered Songs, With influences from pop, hip hop, and folk, it's an exquisite and delicate work that never loses its consistency. It's an album that conveys risk, courage, and fun., It is an album that reflects a journey full of emotions and diverse landscapes that deserves to be listened to on any odyssey. All that hustle and bustle is described in detail in Loreta's answers to our questions. Buckle up, here comes the interview:
Tell me, please, that international story of Infinite Ice Cream. An Argentinian and a Chilean woman start a project while backpacking in Mexico… what a mess…
Hahaha, yes. I was studying Arts at the University of Buenos Aires, and at that time I also worked in music journalism, and I had musical projects. We met Victor at a concert by the La Plata band Tototomás. (He was in that band) and after a while we started hanging out and playing together in a band called Scientific Expeditions. In March 2016 we recorded one of my songs at his house. Forever is a long time, And that's where Infinite Ice Cream began. A month later we went traveling around Mexico, and while we were traveling and working odd jobs, we were writing and recording songs. That's how the project started to take off.
When we were working in the Mexican Caribbean, around October 2016, several traveler friends told us that flights to Europe from there were cheap., So one day we looked and realized we could afford it, so we decided to go for 3 months. Then we realized we didn't have much money to survive there, so we decided to get our act together and start rehearsing the songs a lot. We played there and it went really well. We toured a lot of places and did especially well in Bratislava (Slovakia) and Caen (France). It was a lot of fun.
And now, back on their own soil, how have they been received?
We returned to Argentina somewhat abruptly, and it was violent but beautiful. We had just come from living in the Caribbean, super relaxed, and we arrived in Argentina at the height of winter and the Macri administration.…it was tough at first, but it was also great to reconnect with the people there and what we built with Helado Infinito, because we arrived and had our album made in physical format (We raised the money through a crowdfunding campaign on Ideame) And we put together the live show in a month! It was kind of crazy, but it was great because our friends Nacho, Pitu, Andrés, and Eva really got into it and learned the songs super fast, and both shows we did turned out beautifully. Both were packed, and we got really great feedback. We were super happy.
Going back to Chile is crazy now too., because I hadn't lived here since 2009, And it's like starting from scratch. Helado Infinito isn't very well known here, so we're going all out with promotion to make the album launch here a real party. It's a slow process, but I think it's on the right track. People who listen to the album really like it, so I think we're doing well.
How would you describe the band's current sound?
I think it's a fresh and very current sound, with a good vibe and very bright. We try to mix everything we like: lots of pop, hip-hop, folk and electronic music. What I feel is attractive about Scattered Songs The thing is, each song was made and recorded at a very different time, in a different geographical location, and with us in different states of mind., And that's noticeable in every song. It's a very sincere sound, reflecting our feelings at the time each song was recorded.
Good title for a travel album, where did the idea of calling it that come from?
I'm a huge Kerouac fan (it might sound cliché, but it's true), and he has a collection of beautiful poems, which I really like, called Scattered Poems. I stole the name because I thought it also went well with the style of our first album, And it is also a way of honoring that man who has given me so much joy and so many ideas, and now Victor too, to whom I have lent several books and who already loves them as well.
Amidst so much travel, have you decided where to begin the next stage?
Ugh, no. That's a whole other issue. We're here in Santiago now; we recorded two weeks ago. Notes, a new topic, And in two weeks we have the album launch. That's what we know for sure. We'd love to keep traveling, go back to Mexico, and then go somewhere else to keep exploring and playing music, but for now we have to stay here a little longer to save money and get some stability.
I insist on the travel theme: How have you noticed the artistic and social reality of Latin America?
The truth is that when we went out to travel, we thought we were going to surround ourselves with musicians and people from the arts, and the reality is that that didn't happen. What did happen is that we surrounded ourselves with people very different from us, with other interests and very different views of the world, and we loved that., It broadened our horizons, made us have a great time, made us listen to music we had never heard before, and made us value music in a different way.
In Mexico we had the opportunity to work for 10 days in a prison located on some islands in the Pacific, And that was a super nice and super enriching experience, because that prison is geared towards reintegration, so the inmates did a lot of work related to art and we saw how happy they were with it. Many were very, very good musicians, many made incredible crafts…A lot of talent, and that was also a shock for us because they strongly reminded us of the liberating power of music. I think Latin America has that: a lot of pain and injustice, a lot of inequality, and art helps to heal., Or at least to soothe our sorrows in a beautiful way, something we could share. In prison, we all sang together with the other inmates, and we were all equal; nothing else mattered.
That's regarding the trip…Later, while working as a music journalist in Argentina, I had a lot of contact with independent music from all over, And I think Latin America is one of the places with the most interesting independent music; I love it.
Finally, the corny question: How has love fared amidst all this hurricane of experiences?
Hahaha ❤ Love is quite a journey like this! Very intense and very beautiful. Luckily, we get along really well, we enjoy the same things, and we've been able to express our worries through song, which is very healthy. The trip, and being together almost all the time facing different experiences, has helped us get to know each other very well and learn a lot from one another., since we consider ourselves super and sincerely colleagues.