the big head troubled boy index

Closes 2009 with her first CD “Broken” , recorded in London and is distinguished by her mix of pop, jazz and folk which seperates her from the current stream of female voices.

M., was born in Terrassa (Barcelona) 26 years ago. As a child she wanted to be an opera singer or a pianist but opted for pop when 9 years old after she was given her first guitar. Then from the age of 15 she formed various bands which called her a “singer” because she was a girl.

At 18 she settled in London where “they encouraged me and treated me as a person, not as a woman”. While there she also studied English Philology. Now, at the age of 24, she travels between the English capital and her home city, dedicating herself to “making my music”.

She started recording “Broken” in Barcelona with Arnau Vallvé, a member of Manel but was not satisfied with the result, so she went to London where she signed up with the prestigious Guerillasound Trio and with the producer Nick Kaçal. “I wanted a less refined, less smooth sound typical of a jazz trio consisting of bass, piano/drums,guitar/voice without string section” M. explained who recorded with her London colleagues, all great musicians an “intense and exhausting experience”

Illustrator also of the CD graphics and a comics artist since childhood, this daughter of a painter/sculptor mother, says that the Bighead Troubled Boy, one of her drawings, is “entirely her” although Kaçal is involved as well and contends that the graphics part and the music are “complimentary but not crucial”.

“The drawings are meant to make music”, said M. explaining her logo, “a sensitive child with a large head” who likes and sees things larger than life, fearlessly throwing himself in at the deep end and relinquishing many things”.

In “Broken”, a title alluding to “everything has broken”, includes tracks such as “Revenge”, “Gotta go to bed”, “Stoke Newington”, “Summer broken”, “Paris reminds me slightly of Paris and too much of you”, “Wake up/Fuck it up” or “We are stars”, all in a similar vein to Joni Mitchell and Bjork interpreted by Nick Kaçal on bass, Darren Altman on drums and Sean Hargreaves on piano.

“To put it simply, I reconstructed the voice and guitar with variations and “slap””, says M. who thinks in English but keeps a parallel projection in Castellano.

By choice, her artistic name is M. to avoid problems in other languages; her project is titled Big Head Troubled Boy “to hide that I am a girl” and in the promotional photos “I do not show my face nor my cleavage”.

“I am not a feminist, but a musician, not a product”, argues M. who defines herself as ‘machista’ and is against positive discrimination towards women, not in vain she has just produced her first CD as an independent label. Grabaciones Azul Alcachofa, which she distributes on line via bandcamp, co-published with Guerilla Sound Recordings.

“I was tired of waiting; the companies here told me that they had already promoted a girl – Russian Red, Annie B Sweet, Alondra Bentley, La Bien Querida, Muni Camón”, M. points out, who edited ‘Broken’ in February in the UK, insists that “pop, folk and jazz” are her musical languages.

A follower of Bill Evans, Stephen Malkmus, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Jeff Buckley, asserts that “music is landscapes” and insists that “ in London they understood how important was my music and that the production was secondary”, meanwhile her lyrics are “collections of moments and small cathartic stories.”