Merche Blasco aka Burbuja

Merche Blasco went from engineering geek, to bitch from hell, to journalist, to filmmaker, and now Burbuja.  Here's how.


Chief Magazine: You're from Tudela, Spain what's it like there?   How was your childhood?

Merche Blasco: Tudela is a place where the man I used to buy my music to when I was young, nowadays sells the artichocs in my neighbourhood, in a grocery covered with posters of Björk and Leonardo di Caprio and where your shadow has the shape of your family tree… Feels like Mars on earth for me.

And you studied engineering?

I was so confused after high school… First I wanted to study performing arts in Madrid, then journalism and after that phisics and, for some reason I’m still trying to understand, I ended up spending six years of my life with boys that exchanged new softwares in the lunchbreak… Needless to say I was the weird girl in the class.

How did engineering bring you to make music and videos?

Actually, now I think I wouldn't have started playing in bands or composing without my engineering studies… I needed so much to escape from numbers and formulas during my university period that I created that world to run away from that part of my brain.

Las Perras del Infierno?  The Bitches from Hell?

Yes, i started barking with them when the first band where I used to sing was disolved. Then I moved to Genova, Italy and dogs were too integrated in society... The day I found one next to me in the cleaning section of the supermarket I decided to turn into something else. So I used my new favorite (and meaningless) Italian word to start something with a friend there: “The Boh”. We stole all his mother’s pots as drums and combined them with a synthetizer and a guitar... great time, but luckily nothing was recorded!
























Then you worked at Fabrica in Italy?

I discovered Fabrica by accident in the issue of “alternative energies” of Colors. I bought it because at that time I was doing an investigation in solar energy for the final project of my engineering studies. One of these little situations where I have wondered if everything is already written.
 
What were some of the projects you completed there?

I prepared the first performance of Burbuja that I presented in Madrid and Venice... I became the queen of porn doing some visuals for an opera in Lyon... I turned into a drunk miss Legislatrice dressed in brown fake leather for DURONI DURONI…

Can you describe the performance DURONI DURONI?

Quoting some words of Mr. Kurscmirz, who shared the stage with me in that project: “destruction as liberation and reconstruction as protection of liberty, a cello player who forgot his shoes in the oven, a Miss Goodwine who keeps on serving alcohol to a Miss Legislator who cannot control her law anymore… and 2 sheep."

And you worked on some self-portrait videos including TaKaTa, and your own portrait?

My self-portrait was a result of a period when I was really frustrated because I was constantly finding all the ideas that I was having for new videos or installations in other people’s exhibitions or books, so I came up with this first part of a serial of self-portraits… Now that i think about it, I never did the rest of the serial!  [Laughing.]  Then for the Pompidou exhibition I was recommended to shoot self-portrait ideas for other Fabricanties, and TAKATA was the great vision of my flatmate Miren, who is spanish as well… and our unique kitchen!

Your album, Burbuja, is coming out soon.  What is "Burbuja"?

Burbuja was the nickname my mother gave me when I was a child and I always hated having it sewed in my underwear… But somehow it came back when I had to baptize the musical project I was starting… I felt like having no other choice, there were too many things pointing to it. When I compose I almost do it as therapy. It is my own world where I can drop all the things, feelings, fears, dust that I cannot leave anywhere else, so it feels like being floating inside a bubble--which is what “burbuja” means--isolated from the rest.

With this project, I also discovered for the first time that there were no rules I had to follow. It was like waking up in a brand new space with no structures and all the freedom to compose and try new things different from what I have ever heard or played before. I didn’t have to agree or discuss with anyone else… that's why I quite enjoy playing by myself, though I love asking other minds to collaborate later.

About the debut, it's being released next February with the label Station 55 Records and produced by Cristian Vogel who did amazing work . We have been working on it for almost two years!

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But defenitelefy all the work has been worth it, at least for me... just observing him while working and experimenting with burbuja-sound in his studio has been a pleasure and an unforgetable lesson of music.

I find your music to be simultaneously fun and dark.  Almost childish.  Or nightmarish?  How you would describe it?

Both together are a pretty good! People in Italy used to call me Peter Pan, and it fits quite well with my internal fight between leaving the childhood spirit I'm so attached to and assuming my actual age and life situation, with all the responsabilities it entails… For this second one I have a quite dark vision of the “adult world” so that’s the nightmarish character my music contains.

What's your process for making a song?  Do you start with a beat or melody in your head?  Do you write lyrics first?

Every song has its own process… Some were initially composed for a theatre opera, so I studied the personality of some of the characters in it and composed a piece for them. Others started with a noise I really enjoyed creating, the rhythmic part of the song, and then started adding the melody… And some are the result of a very specific mood I was going through, and had to express somehow... those are my favorite ones.

Who are some people you admire?  Who inspires you?

Anything that makes me put one song twice... even if it's just for laughing at it. I have listened to really different styles of music since I can remember. I have this image of myself the first year after leaving my hometown re-recording with folk music the hard-punk tapes I listened to with my old brother’s friends... so my music is the result of all that mix, noises included of course.

Do people ever say to you, "You remind me of Bjork"?

A lot of times, specially in Italy… first I enjoyed it but now everyone starts with “You know who remind me of?” And in my head knocks, “oh no, please, not again.” In terms of music I guess it's normal because if you see a girl doing electronic, dressed in a weird way and singing with a carpet on her head, Björk is the first reference for the mainstream… Once my sister called me because she discovered through an interview with Björk that we were both born the same day… that was weird and funny… Unfortunately there's no trace of Icelandic geysers in my voice.

Downloads

finalpeq_Medium.mov
burbujaintro_none_Medium.mov

1.roped.mp3

2.whoKNOWS.mp3

3.shhhh.mp3

Websites

www.a100.tv/burbuja
www.last.fm/music/burbuja