INTERVIEW : “JAZZY ROMERO ON LA MANO ” -BUNNY JR TAPES

BUNNY JR : So I’m gonna ask you some questions and your gonna say what you mean and mean what you say.

JAZZY: Exactly. Thank you so much for having me.

BUNNY JR : First, can you to tell us a bit about your most recent project, La Mano.

JAZZY: La Mano is a newly formed electronic band that I’m writing and producing for with my collaborator Julien Passajou. We started this summer 2019. Julien makes music on analog drum machines and synthesizers. He would send me tracks titled “NEW TRACK FOR JAZZY”, “ANOTHER TRACK FOR JAZY”, “mushroom” , “sci fi ambient ” , “TRACK V.1 " … and so on. They were usually about 5 mins long and many of them felt like finished compositions.  

B: What do you mean by finished compositions?

J: Meaning they sorta followed a form like this : intro , middle, solo section, outtro. Not all but some. Just meaning a composition of music where all the right stuff  builds and has an arc to it. So after listening, I felt like I really went somewhere. I played them on repeat in my headphones everywhere I went. Then I would start a process of writing lyrics. This part is usually hard for me because I’m private about my life but I wanna share my personal experiences in my music without giving any names you know?

B: What kind of things are you writing about?

J: People. Myself. Its more like a picture or a scene in my head ( which can be anything, sometimes not even belonging to me), that gives me a sensation. When that sensation continues to develop or replay in my imagination is when I feel compelled to capture it with words.

B: So you are the vocalist and lyricist for La Mano and I understand you produce the music as well.

J: Yes. Julien and I both do. He is behind the initial demo tracking on his gear , then I engineer the recording sessions and add to the tracks if I need to. There’s a balance between the analog sound and modern vocals that took me a long time to find. I’m into the gritty crushing bass sound and the synthesizer textures… so I always try to leave all of that intact.

B: And then you record the vocals?

J: Yes. It can be a very tedious process. I can be extremely long process with my work. When it comes to recording vocals especially because I’m a harsh critic and careful about pitch.

B: The vocals on the single paint colorful pictures for me. 

J: Thanks, I understand my voice much better now. I know that theres many parts to it. I try to represent all parts of it because I see it like different instruments in the orquestra. Cellos, and upright bass, french horn, viola , tenor sax , flute.

B: I really love that imagery. 

J: It's the picture that always plays for me. 

B: So voice is your main instrument ? You play guitar as well right? Tell us about your relationship with the guitar.

J: Its a long one. I love the guitar and guitaristic music. I own a Cordoba classical miniature guitar that I play and record with often. The Cordoba, unlike my other guitars, has a very delicate voice. Sometimes I play it and I feel like I’m playing the harp. Classical guitar holds a sentimental place in my heart. It reminds me of Mariachi, boleros, oldies, soul, novelas, … it’s the voice of fucking romance. I record with it all the time and it blows all the other players outta the water. It’s a star. It commands attention. 

B: Thats so romantic. Your right , it sorta does have a harp quality to it. I heard it on the short video you recently uploaded on youtube. Water Song.

J: Exactly. That recording was made very quickly and it’s made up of only 2 tracks, one track for the chord rhythm and another track for the solo guitar improvisation. That’s it.

B: I found that composition to be one of your best. It sounded like so much more is going on. It has a really great ambience to it. Beautiful video as well. Where was that shot?

J: That video is a collection of a few years of footage. A trip to the Greek islands in the summer of 2017, and a trip to Tijuana in the summer 2019. I arranged and edited the video back in 2017 but I didn’t like the music ( also a classical guitar piece) that was set to it at the time. I guess what happened was that the Water Song just poured out of me one day and it felt finished in one take. I feel lucky to have it recorded. That day I was thinking about struggle and perseverance. To me its a sound document of those emotions. It was a love note to myself, a personal lullaby. I’m speaking solely about the music. The images in the video are a part of my archive. 

B: It resonated with me. Your music practice involves not just playing music but you are a visual artist as well. I like that you create a visual language for your music, how else is it a part of your musical expression?

J: I’ve been interested in it since I was a child. Music for film and sound design. I'm trying to make more cinematic soundscapes paired with video. You can hear some of that cinematic sound in La Mano. I think It started with cartoons.

B: On a day to day , what does your music practice look like ?

J: That’s a tough question because it is never just a one thing. It can’t be. My writing process has everything to do with the sum of my musical history and practice. I definitely pick up the guitar to sort out harmony or chords when i’m working on a new composition. It’s a major part of the process, like even voice leading on the choruses for La Mano. It always hangs within arms reach of my work desk. A keyboard sits on my desk too and these days I find myself reading a lot.

Yesterday I was looking for something to read, (on my instruments not like a novel) and I remembered the name of a book of Matteo Carcassi Etudes. So I searched all over imslp( a website for all classical music notation ) and found the one I liked. I sat at the keyboard and read through it. For some reason I really wanted to practice sight reading a study that day. Sort of in the middle of reading the music I came across a passage that sounded interesting, like if it was played on a synth with some delay.

So then I opened up a synth and tried it out out but it wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be . So I switched to guitar and read though “Misty,” a Jazz standard and worked through a chord melody instead. I probably played it for 45 mins and then improvised over it, listened to Dorothy Ashby play over it, and then moved on. Twenty five minutes of reading classical music for fun that led to an idea.

Transcription is a huge part of my practice. That’s my music practice. Listening, playing and transcribing.

B: Somehow you found a way to make electronic music that is inspired by jazz. 

J: Well, it’s not so much that La Mano is inspired by Jazz. It’s more that now it’s a language I use to interpret music. The Jazz language is something I really sank into and learned. It happened after having played in a handful of punk bands that traveled and recorded, which was a huge part of my upbringing and was an experience that I would never trade for anything. Studying Jazz and Classical music was the obvious next step for me. I’m not sure this will make sense to my readers but it does make sense to me.

I think that jazz and punk are related. The energy of punk had to do with creating dissonance in the music and in a space. Jazz also was about suggesting harmonic dissonance and experimenting with abrasive improvisation. So, improvisation and playing popular song forms but implying dissonant or “out “ harmony is the commonality within the two genres and styles of music. I’ve always been interested in the deviant nature of artists and how it marks history. I guess they have that in common too.

B: Going back to La Mano , how did you end up with the single and 2 remixes right away?

As I was producing the initial demo track , La Mano had a show we were preparing music for. “A House,” was the first demo and somewhere along the way we lost the track. It wasn’t stored on any of the gear anymore so all we had was the original raw recorded demo. We had to remake it using samples from the OG demo. What happened was amazing , it was still “A House” but the synth line ( a complicated melody impossible to replay) was twisted in a new tricky way. That’s the story about the first remix. 

The second is that I was sitting at my desk working on a dance piece I had been commissioned for and sorta started collaging music from my archive. The dance piece was a down tempo sorta ambient vibe made for a large stage. Just as an experiment,  I recorded vocals using the melody and lyrics from “A House” and then I couldn’t go back. I became too attached to the new version of it. Its a ten minute long piece of music I lived in for two weeks ..?

One of my favorite aspects of music and singing is that things change. During the recording , my vocal inflections started to develop into something new. They changed because I was singing to the ambient wave of the new track. It felt like I got to say the same thing but just change the color subtly. I sometimes call these events, musical gestures, and I try to freeze them when they happen.

B: Hey I think we covered a lot of ground and to close up the conversation I wanna ask you about the images your using for La Mano. Where do they come from ?

J: Oh those are very special. Julien makes them. I can’t tell you what kind of camera he uses because 1. I don’t know what it’s called, and 2. It’s rare anyway. The camera is very much like the instruments used make La Mano. They’re like cousins. 

Early on in the project we got together to discuss the name, the images and vibe of our collaboration. We hadn’t even made any music yet. He took out his phone and showed me a screen shot of a self portrait he had taken. It was sort of a blurry, grainy and elusive image. Kinda pale in the coloration and I guess Lo-Fi. That first image sorta directed my approach to the songwriting I was about to start. Later he purchased a camera in an electronics shop in his home town. We took the camera to the graveyard and shot photos,  and on another day we rode the ferry to the beach. Wandered around. Stumbled into a nasty dumpling spot , I shaved his head and gave him a mohawk, I pet a blue nose pit bull on the street, lurked a sketchy pool hall. Just doing things that were fun and always taking turns documenting because, without having any official conversation about it , we knew that it’s all very tied to the purpose of making La Mano. The images are closely working with the music. If the images could sing it would be La Mano. If La Mano could paint , it would be these images. 

B: Music video is next right ?  Tour?

J: Yes! Japan and France are high priority. 

B: Thank you so much J, glad to get your story out. 

J: Siq chop up. Glad to put a chop on it. Finally , Had to put a chop on it. 

-Bunny Jr Tapes 

Photos courtesy of Julien Passajou

Winter 2019