The last two years that humanity has lived, at least in the first moment of the COVID-19 pandemic, seemed like a kind of apocalyptic movie. In this way, there have been many references and points of contact that have been established from culture; mainly from literature and cinema, from where works have been produced that reflect what happened throughout the planet because of the new coronavirus.
With such reference, Anthuan Perugorría and Lázaro Peña, leaders of the band Red Cloudtook on the task of creating an album that in some way reflected what they experienced and helped them, at the same time, deal with the stressful situation of the crisis unleashed by the pandemic. like a movie is the not accidental title of the phonogram eight themes. “It was born in the pandemic, when the world was ‘like a movie’, in fact, it still is,” he comments to OnCuba Anthuan. And he adds: “We did it with all the energy, as if we weren’t living this moment”.
After almost three years without composing, the band gets together, launches a song first, “and from that we began to build the others and the doll was put together in a more informal way; making fun of everything we were experiencing instead of suffering it, hence the name of the album. It’s a game with all that.”
For the band, the visual aspect is an important element of the creative repertoire. Their strong cinematographic influences have allowed them to achieve a visual and aesthetic that has identified them in these almost 10 years of career: “Our music has always been around, that’s why our videos have also always had a lot to do with cinema, because it feel very personal. We made this album so that people would feel it as personal and if it works to get out of all these problems, then we’re happy that it works”, comments Peña.
For his part, Anthuan refers that “we have always been linked to everything audiovisual because we have the cinema very close and on this album each video is like a tribute to the 90’s, that’s why it will be accompanied by a lot of image”.
“Even when we compose we try to visualize through images; turn them into music. Those referring to the films that we have are also influential, not only in the audiovisual, but also from the music and soundtracks of these films.
Precisely for this reason, the best cover letters of the album are the single and the video that give this new material its title. like a movie It is a fun song, with which anyone can identify, because it talks about what we are experiencing, what global society has become and also, if you will, ours. To whom the sayo serves…
“It works for everyone. Everything can be seen from different angles and that is what is fun and rich, that people can take what they want from the subject and express it as they want” Anthuan tells us.
At first sight, classics of the seventh art such as pulp fiction, Natural Born Killers, Fight Club, The silence of the lambs Y the matrix They’re in like a moviea somewhat clip tarantinesqueto say of the montage and the story that the audiovisual seeks to tell.
Another of the videos with cinematographic references is I don’t want anothera duet with Kelvis Ochoa, a piece that recalls the also classics of 90s cinema The Truman show Y Basic Instinctamong other points of connection with the pop culture of the time, such as video games.
Already in the case of “You want a party”, Red Cloud moves away a bit from the ’90s to enter the aesthetics of the ’80s of the last century, even from the sound, with which it can be described as a calmer theme, compared to those mentioned above, but always with a strong visual component that, more than accompanying it, complements it.
From the musical point of view, in the phonogram there is an approach to Cuban rhythms, an element almost absent in the two previous productions of the band, with a more pop sound and alternative.
Anthuan explains that “this has been growing with us. We started out well as alternatives but it is really impossible to get rid of our roots and that happens a lot to the Cuban alternative movement. One always ends up mixing with Cuban music and the work becomes another product authentic”.
Peña points out that “Cuban music is also more alternative every day. With all the new genres and sounds, Cuban music itself becomes alternative music”, as can be seen in singles such as “Back to the ’90s” and “With the tongue out”, just to cite two examples.
The members of the band expressed their desire to make a video for all the songs “but it is difficult”, although “we almost make the videos ourselves, and the song that does not have a clip will have a live video, there will always be some visual support”, they point out.
Throughout its history, the band has managed to maintain the spirit of when they played as instrumentalists, especially in Evolution. That state of mind does not change: “We make music because we really like it and we have grown little by little, but we have always maintained the same state and that keeps us firm making music as if it were the first day, discovering things and having fun along the way. ”, comments Anthuan.
“But in our minds we are still the couple of kids who started with Evolution and they wanted to sing later, without counting on the physical, the gray hair, the children”, Peña jokes about it, as if to highlight that youthful and jovial feeling that characterizes the band and that they transmit —now again—, on stage.
