Interview with Chacho
(Picture credits, also for the main page - creative direction: Charlotte Viglino, photography: Margot Valipour, editing: Charlotte Viglino, brand: Tracy Charlène)
This story begins in early February of 2024 when I went to see the band Zuckerbecker at the Gaswerk in Winterthur. Also on the line-up that night were Chacho & Friends and Anda A Anda. I was drawn in instantly by Chacho & Friends’ music - the guitars and vocals wrapped in echo and reverb, the guitar pedals being adding further ambience and a very close-knit rhythm section.
Earlier this month the album, Magia Lumen, was released in collaboration with Oh, Sister Records and Bleu Lagon Records. The album showcases a dreamy, ambient side to it, sometimes reminiscent of Deerhunter’s Cryptograms-era and vocals that remind me of Kim Gordon’s stream of consciousness vocals in songs such as Sonic Youth’s Tunic (A Song for Karen) before switching it up with a punchy bass lines - either on the bass guitar or synth - accompanied by jazz-influenced grooves changing the tempo of the song and playfulness coming through in the lyrics.
To promote the release of the album, a record release concert took place at Le Bout du Monde in Vevey and the music video for the song, Fight For, was released. The video allows the viewer to enter into Chacho’s mysterious world, one that we have had glimpses of through her Instagram feed or in the video, Is it the time. The creativeness and effort behind the imagery adds an extra layer to the music and to the artist. To find out more about the project of Chacho & Friends, I interviewed Chacho for Reverb Dream.
Tell us about yourself and your project
Chacho comes to life either as an alternative rock trio called Chacho & Friends, accompanied by dianita and Jean l'Asticot, or as a more experimental and electronic solo project. The sounds are tinkered with, disordered, crepuscular. Fuzzy frequencies and repetition. Again and again. The crunchy guitar sounds are still ever present with distant voices: everything is mixed up, out of time.
Who/what are your influences (musical or otherwise)?
It’s always a tough question because the Friends and I have very different influences so it’s a mix of everything but mostly: ambient, punk, DIY rock, experimental, electronic,… The mix of all those styles have led us towards music which is very special to us and now represents all of us.
What role does image play in your music?
I’m a graphic designer so everything about image in music is really important to me. I like having different roles related to image in my musical project. This allows me to evolve not only as a graphic designer but also as a video maker, photographer, creative director and much more in order to create press photos, album covers, video clips, event posters etc… I learn a lot of things and it helps me to expand my practice as a visual artist. It’s really important to me to create a special visual universe related to my music. I think it helps to immerse people into the music, into a special environment that I imagined in my head.
How did you find the “Friends”? Who are they?
I started to write my own songs around two years ago and I really wanted to play them live with drums and bass, so I asked two musician friends (dianita on the drums and Jean l’Asticot on the bass) from the music label Bleu Lagon Records in Vevey. We started to play together and it was a good match straight away. Actually, I already played with dianita in a band called Galsh so I already knew that it would work for us to share music within this new project. I met Jean l’Asticot because he’s really active in the music scene (Fomies, Jean l’Asticot, Dream Parade,…). The Friends are my bandmates but also real friends in my everyday life.
How does it feel to have recorded your first album? How did you write and record it?
I’m really proud of us, of our work and creative thoughts. I’m very happy we did this together, collectively. I really wanted to create a vinyl, even in a very small quantity, to have an object of what was the project at the beginning, to keep a trace of it. The vinyl is very hybrid because the A-side (Face A) features recent tracks co-written by Chacho, Jean l’Asticot and dianita and the B-side (Face B) is a return to the roots, when Chacho & Friends was originally Chacho’s solo project.
We recorded everything at Spoutnick Studio, the studio of my father. It was the first project I made with him so it’s very special to me. It also made me realise how fortunate I am to have a relative into music, having the space to create in a safe environment. Then a friend of us, Maxime, did an amazing job for the mix and mastering. Also for the promotion Oh, Sister Records helped us a lot. I’m so grateful that such cool humans helped us making our music real and shareable.
How did you write the songs? Which songs were elaborated with the Friends?
Gone, Moving Sand and Fight For are all compositions that we wrote together. Electricity, Sad Song and Egg are songs that I first wrote alone, in my bedroom with my guitar and Logic, and then that we played together, adding sounds, changing parts,…
How did you make the decision to sing in English?
English was very natural to me. I have a certain distance with this language as it’s not my mother tongue but I’m confortable to speak it so I didn’t even think about the language choice. It was fluid and easy like this. French would have been too intimate and close to me.
Tell us about the creation of the video for “Fight For”?
(The video is also embedded on the page after the social media links)
We were recording the album at Spoutnick Studio and my dad showed me this old TV he bought. He’s a big fan one vintage instruments and also objects. I immediately imagined it as a video and was so excited to make something out of it, so I recorded some stuff during the recording session with the friends and then I recorded new rushes of myself singing with the help of my mum. Then I made the editing part myself. It’s very special to me that I created this video with my parents.
You celebrated the album’s release in Vevey, how was the evening?
We did our release party at Le Bout du Monde in Vevey in collaboration with Bleu Lagon Records. We had a very warm welcome, surrounded by our friends from Vevey. We invited a very good friend and incredible artist Aurelie Emery to play before us. The atmosphere was very nice and supportive.
You have performed across Switzerland, what do you think of the music scene in the country?
I’m always a bit surprised that lot of independent, small and underground venues know us and our music and have invited us to play for almost two years!! I’ve discovered a lot of places and met lot of people in corners of Switzerland where I would never have been without being invited (because I just didn’t know those places). So I’m very grateful for this. I wish those little venues are not gonna close because of lack of money in culture because they are unique and very welcoming every time.
What do you have planned next for the near future?
I’m very happy and grateful to have released an album. I’m focusing on two projects now: my solo project and also the one with the Friends. I want to write new stuff with the Friends and also trying to explore the performative side of my solo project more and also continuing to play live.
Let’s see what the future brings.
Links:
Bandcamp (purchase Magia Lumen here)