She Knows is a Spanish-Brazilian duo with an unmistakable sound: a mix of 90’s pop and modern dance music. Their credo – to take time for the beautiful things in life, in order to experience these on a deeper level – are mirrored in their music.
We caught up with She Knows to talk about their latest release ‘Natural Medicina’ on Sirin Music.
Electronic Groove: Hello Teresa & Marcel, thanks for your time today. You have a new EP on Bar 25 Music’s sublabel Sirin Music. How do you feel about this new material?
She Knows: Hello and thanks for the invite. This release is a celebration, it makes us very happy that our music is out there and can be shared. We are very excited to be part of the beginning of the Sounds of Sirin imprint. Thanks to the scholarship of Musicboard Berlin GmbH we have created a small world around ‘Natural Medicina’ that we invite you to discover.
EG: Despite it being an electronic music track, ‘Natural Medicina’ has a very organic note to it. How did the production process look like?
She Knows – Marcel: We mainly use hardware synthesizers (digital and analog) to make our tracks. It’s a very jam-based process and we tend to start with the synthesizers, maybe because they’re always ready to go. Prophet 08 is one of our favorites, I believe it’s everywhere on our tracks. For the drums, we do everything with Ableton Push, Drum Rack, and Digitakt. I have tons of my own Drum Rack presets, which I often play with. Push and Digitakt are a super combo for making fast, creative beats. We also like to use live recorded percussive sounds and grooves as an important part of the overall beats and grooves.
EG: What do you want to convey with this track?
She Knows – Teresa: We started to produce ‘Natural Medicina’ two years ago and after we had finished a first nice arrangement Marcel showed me an old documentary from the nineties about a tribe in Amazonas, Brazil. We just dropped the video in our Ableton project and made a very fast video editing. It was an amazing symbiosis of those images with the mood of the track, and its melodies, lyrics, synths lines…
The soul and message for this song, just came to us naturally, which we would like to share with you:
“Human nature is being corrupted. Materialism, power, repressing ideals of identities, bodies, and sexuality make us struggle to become something that will detach us from our own natural being. But there is this deep sound mirroring our longing to find our roots, to get back to the essence, to accept who we are and where we come from. It is the sound that can be a natural medicine, reminding us of our unconscious origins and different realities that can heal us” – by Mihaela Gladovic
EG: Who did you work with for this EP?
She Knows: ‘Natural Medicina’ includes 3 remixes of the same track by the Argentinian Duo Los Cabras, the Brazilian producer Gus What, and the Berlin-based producer from Thailand Dan Buri. Sometimes for special live gigs we also bring on stage the Brazilian percussionist Cid Travaglia. He also joined us at the studio to record Natural Medicina’s percussions.
“Collaborations bring fresh air, new interpretations, new sounds, new messages, new feelings, new colors,
new moments, new inspiration”
EG: You also produced a music video for ‘Natural Medicina’ with the Valencian video artist Laura Cuello. What do you think pictures can add to what you would like to say with your music?
She Knows – Teresa: A lot! We invite everyone to watch the video and enjoy the amazing work of Laura. I know her for more than 15 years and her work has always inspired me! We just saw the video clip when it was finished and her brilliant input to the whole story amazed us! The music video for ‘Natural Medicina’ is made from old archive videos of British Pathè and the Prelinger archives. It seeks to uncover the momentum in which the white man seeks answers – often in the wrong place – to help him heal from the diseases of modern world capitalism.
EG: Two years ago, you were with Marcel and sometimes also with Cid on stage. Now you do most of your live shows by yourself or sometimes with Cid. How do you think did that influence the style of She Knows?
She Knows – Teresa: Playing the ‘Distorted Images’ Live Set in 2019 by myself has brought me the experience of using the unlimited choices you have when mixing your own music live, in order to create unique moments to each live performance. Vocals certainly help to create these unique vibes on the dance floor, but I also play instrumental tracks like ‘Açaí’, produced mostly by Marcel. One of our latest compositions is ‘Certain Days’, which was produced at the end of 2019, after touring. Both tracks are included in this EP.
EG: You say about yourself that you see She Knows more as a dynamic platform for artistic collaboration than as a band. How does this look like in practice?
She Knows – Teresa: Collaborations bring fresh air, new interpretations, new sounds, new messages, new feelings, new colors, new moments, new inspirations. While collecting all the pieces for this EP ‘Natural Medicina’ and for the creation of our new website, we set up a collaboration page to show that there is much more behind our music project She Knows. Since the beginning, many creative people have worked with us and had the freedom to express their ideas very freely. We both share a similar approach of liberty when working with creative people. Berlin just makes it possible
EG: How did the last months during the lockdown look like for you from your artist perspective? Did you also have time to work creatively and produce new material?
She Knows – Teresa: Well, we were both a bit paralyzed at the beginning. We had to go through the same process as anybody else of understanding the whole situation, as we both have families and friends in Spain, Brazil and Italy. At the same time, we have been focused on the production of this EP and that was very good in the process of finding our way back to art and music, bypassing a bit all the noise and fear out there. We have also been creating new moods, even online. Marcel finally started to acquire the first modular pieces we are willing to start using in our production.
“We just hope to keep making music to inspire and help people go through these bizarre times”
EG: Were any gigs rescheduled? How do the gigs situation look like?
She Knows: There was this special self-produced event, Soulflight: Monkey Maffia // She Knows // Conzum at the end of March in collaboration with Zeiss-Planetarium Jena that we were forced to cancel two weeks before its date. We are looking forward to reschedule this gig. Together with the live visual artist Robert Metzner, we wanted to offer a 360° full immersion show of soundscapes, performance and visuals. It would be a dream to make it possible in the near future. The show is ready!
Otherwise we also play online. Only a few weeks ago we participated on a live stream at one of our favourite clubs in Berlin, Rummelsbucht, organized by one of their oldest party collectives Schiffbruch. Let’s say that we will spend this year 2020 mostly at the studio… 😉
EG: What’s next?
She Knows: We just hope to keep making music to inspire and help people go through these bizarre times that the whole world is going through. Art and culture is the way.
She Knows ‘Natural Medicina’ EP is now available via Sirin Music. Stream and buy here.
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