La Torre, Ecuadorian singer-songwriter, wins the IFCI award and releases her EP ‘Orillas’

A cool afternoon falls in Quito. Despite the summer, the sky is cloudy and rain is even predicted. Finally, the rain doesn’t help, only a few drops fall on the umbrellas of cafeteria and bakery Jürgen, in the north of the capital.

Amidst the smell of coffee, chocolate, wine and freshly baked bread, she arrives, her graceful figure of 168 meters. He moves fast, wears a black sweater with green pieces of cloth, black pants and white Converse shoes. The dark hue of the clothes accentuates her scarlet hair that falls subtly to her shoulders, two large locks enclose her fresh face, her blue eyes, her white teeth and her red lips. She is La Torre, a young Ecuadorian singer and songwriter.

Jürgen is a traditional bakery, gourmet and organically founded in Quito in 2013 by Jürgen Spelier, a Dutchman who belongs to the fourth generation of chef bakers in his family. His ancestors founded the first Spelier bakery in Zeeland, the Netherlands, 129 years ago, and many original recipes are still made the same way here.

“My project is a mix between alternative electropop and Ecuadorian sounds,” he says, resting his arms on a comfortable wooden table.

In one of the promotional materials, the phrase reads, “Life and death are but two banks of the same river.”

Why deny duality in the case of life and death?

That sentence is inspired by a poem by Hugo Mujica, which speaks precisely about life and death, because in the end they are two banks of the same river, they are the same bank and we only realize it after we have been shipwrecked. Then, at the end of his life, he realizes that duality does not exist, that life and death are just two sides of the same coin.

It’s not surprising that love is the inspiration for music, but why do your songs deal with topics such as loss of life, grief, rebirth and the ability to heal?

My experience of grief started when my mother passed away suddenly from cancer. As a result, I began to address these issues and go through my own grieving process, and like artists, we use creation to go through these stages, because grieving starts from the moment of pain, but resilience also emerges. to me, that’s what I’m trying to save, that ability we have to heal and keep moving forward in life. But sometimes we give negative connotations to death when in reality it is just part of the same life experience.

“What are you going to order?” interrupts the waiter.

‘A chocolate, please,’ he replies, letter in hand, but without losing concentration.

The waiter nods and leaves smiling.

How did you get inspired to music when you grew up in a family that consisted mainly of engineers?

No one in my family is an artist, they are engineers, some lawyers and architects, but I’ve never had anyone who was directly involved with music. I’ve looked for the artistic, not only in music, but also in visual arts, in design, so I feel like art has always been in me as something innate.

Was it difficult to establish yourself as an artist?

I didn’t get there that easily, first I studied law and then I decided to study art.

In my adolescence I always studied music, even as a child I always had a study approach to music. Although I come from Quito, I have always lived in small towns like Yaruquíes, in Chimborazo and Manta and it seemed impossible to be a musician, there were practically no musicians around me, I think it is something very sad what is happening in Ecuador happens that not every world can have access to a musical education. However, living in small towns allowed me to get closer to traditional Ecuadorian music and get to know Ecuador in all its context. When I arrived in Quito, I studied law and realized there was a world of possibilities within music and I got closer.

Can you tell me about your musical production?

Since 2019 I mostly release singles, and in 2021 I released an album that was a compilation of all these singles, it’s called reincarnationswhich is also accompanied by several repetitions of these songs by some local artists such as the Ecuadorian duo Miel and others from abroad, such as the Spaniard Alejandro Guillán Castaño, known as Baiuca, Quiero Club, from Mexico, and Kermesse, from Argentina.

His music has been recognized with the Ibermúsicas 2020 and 2021, Sayce 2016, 2019 and 2021 awards, he is part of Warner Chappell Music Spain and won the competitive funds of the Institute for the Promotion of Creativity and Innovation (IFCI), which consists of the musical production and making of a music video, which took place on August 24, 2023.

What does the musical production of the IFCI Prize consist of?

With this prize the production of the EP was realized. banks, where we worked as a team, in collaboration with other people, this is important because it allows us to draw from other artists. We work with Las Añez, from Colombia, and Chancha Vía Circuito, from Argentina; Xuzu, Ecuadorian producer, and Mauro Samaniego, who participated in the composition of the first song, Absence.

What benefits do you get when you become part of Warner Chappell Music Spain?

For me the fact that Warner Chappell Music Spain called me is very important, it’s like a call to continue exploring our music because traditional Ecuadorian music or Ecuadorian sounds have great power and acceptance outside the country and that gives gives us a distinctive character in relation to other projects in this globalized world.

He concludes with a sip of chocolate.