Some bands make it difficult to summarize their music. Others make it easy.
Take DeLeon, for instance. File them under 15th century Sephardic indie rock.
While the summary is straightforward, the music of DeLeon is not. On each of its three albums to date, the Mexico City-based act, led by American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Saks, presents a mix of sounds and instruments, layers and themes, dances and laments. On their latest release, Tremor Fantasma, Saks and company continue their self-described mission: "centuries-old Sephardic sounds de-time capsuled and revitalized."
Stream the complete album, and read our Q&A with Saks, below.
PLAYDeLeon/Tremor Fantasma
Tracklist
You draw your songs from centuries-old Sephardic music. For the uninitiated, can you define your source material?
Sephardic music is a loose, general term. It refers to the canon of folk music that came out of the diaspora of Jews that were in Spain prior to the Inquisition and left as a result of it. It also refers to those communities that ended up in Greece, Turkey, North Africa — but the common tie is the roots in Spain. The songs are mostly in the language of Ladino.
So what drew an indie rocker from Brooklyn to start experimenting with modernizing 600-year-old folk songs?
I'm Jewish, my mother is Sephardic. I knew a bunch of the songs growing up, my parents had a bunch of records and I was aware of this music. I've been in various bands since middle school — salsa, hip-hop, death metal, gospel choirs, contra-dancing bands. And I really like playing all those different types of music, but when I sat down with this music, it felt more like home, like I should be playing this style; it felt natural.
There were a few songs I liked, but most of the recordings are very traditional recordings. I tried a few songs in my home studio and revamped them in my own style. I hooked up with JDub Records, who were very encouraging. So DeLeon was born.
I first spoke to you a few years ago. Since then, you've left New York and transplanted to Mexico City. What prompted the move?
Well, there comes a time when everyone needs to spend a few years in Mexico. I lived in New York for 10 years, pretty much to the day when I moved. It's not that I was tired of living there, but ... I found that I was no longer devouring the city like I was when I got there. You fall into a routine and I wasn't getting the same creative energy. New York has a great music scene but also a self-aware music scene. Moving here, being out of the blog vortex and having the different influences coming at me, it just seemed like a great place to make a record.
Did Mexico bring a different dynamic to the writing and recording process?
The city gives off a very different energy. There are [a] couple of songs that sound more Mexican, and a cover of Café Tacuba, which is probably Mexico City's most famous band. You take it for granted how aware you are of all the cultural worth of the things around you, in a place you're from. Here, a lot of it is ... being somewhere strange and working there. When I got here I was exploring the city and going out and hearing bands I didn't know anything about, and spending nights listening to mariachi in the plaza and absorbing as much as I possibly could.
The title of the record is also informed by the geography. Tell me about Mexico's tremor fantasma.
I did not grow up with earthquakes. That was not part of my deal. When I got here, there were four decent-sized earthquakes within the span of four months. Since the city was devastated [by quakes] in 1985, building codes and such are much better, but nonetheless it kind of tweaked me out. In the months afterwards, when there were no earthquakes, there was something that they call "phantom earthquakes." You experience earthquakes, but they are not there — I had to look around the room and make sure things were not shaking.
I looked into it, and it's a thing that happens in places that are somewhat earthquake prone. It's an experience, a sensation, that I will always associate with making this record.
You tapped into the Sephardic scene and crowdsourced the songs here. Can you explain how?
The process for the past records was that I'd sift through books and CDs — sifting through the Sephardic music catalogue and tried to choose songs that spoke to me for some reason or another. For this one, I thought it would be fun to involve the Sephardic music world at large. So what I did was use Spotify … to create a collaborative playlist. I made a video inviting people to add other version[s] of their favourite Sephardic songs to this master playlist, which would be the tracklist for this new record.
Now, if you draw a Venn diagram of people who are technological savvy and big enough fans of Sephardic music and a circle of people I could reach — we're not talking about millions of people. We ended up with 20 songs. Some we'd recorded already, some of them just didn't fit the project. But I recorded most of them. It forced me to look at other songs from regions I would not have checked out. Some of them were themes I might have usually shied away from. It forced me to figure out how to make these
songs my own.
What are your favourite musical moments on this album?
I've got a good, long banjo solo in the second track. "Barminon" is a pretty successful fusion between popular Mexican music and the [Ladino] origins of that song. The Café Tacuba song ["La Muerte Chiquita"] is one I always wanted to cover. Since I moved to Mexico City, it seemed a good way to pay tribute to having recorded the CD here.
"Üsküdara" is a melody that's also on our first two records. On our first CD it's track one — "Yodukha Rayonai," a Hebrew hymn. On the second, it is "Fel Shara," which is a playful song. I found a way to work in the same melody in completely different styles on each of our records. This one is kind of electronic weirdness that closes out the record.
You are in the unique situation to have a touring band in two different countries — one in New York, one in Mexico. How is that working out?
I ended up with amazing musicians from popular Mexico City bands. The arrangements — the sound of the band — is different. It's cool for me to play the same set with two complete[ly] different bands, two very different arrangements. It's allowed me to explore these songs further. I don't think there's a lot of bandleaders who get to do that.
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