Autotel

The tower

A tower, constructed with a precarious structure, which holds itself merely due to a delicate equilibrium. A thunder attacks it, and from within, now two people are falling down into the darkness, or the sea; depending on how you see it. According to the Tarot, The Tower is an indication of the death of all which I used to identify with and hold onto. Like being on a falling tower, my tower, into the unknown. Only the essential is left. It is said that through the loss we find a more solid foundation to build anew.

The tower album art

This album tells the story of falling down from my living on Finland; a tower I was gripping onto but which was crumbling with a lack of sense, and a sensation of systemically not being accepted. Maybe it had to do with my slightly in the spectrum way of being, or perhaps it’s my being foreign in Finland. Probably the two things combined. The fate was rolling already. We had been moving homes, and even though we lived in the most beautiful places, it gave me a sense of being afloat. It was time to renew my residence permit to stay in Finland yet again, and everyday life was so overwhelming, that I was not able to cope with this bureaucratic process.

The following year was extremely tough, everything fell down, and I fell down into this remote place, where I am currently healing a long rooting depression. It really is a beautiful process, despite the pain, because from my perspective I can see all what I needed to heal; which I would’ve never seen before the fall.

I started creating the music in this album, without knowing that it would be an album on itself, but already feeling the things that this period brought to me. In reality there was so much music, but I had to make a selection as to not end up with a dark and heavy album. After all, I am interested in the process of healing more than in the despair itself.

The arrival to this corner of the world was really interesting. I was able to access types of therapy which would never be available in the north, and visiting the places where I grew up, I could reckon again with my childhood, but now from the perspective of the adult that I am. This is why many songs on the album have to do with the identity of being Chilean, and how this conjugates with having lived abroad and having to find explanations to my right of existing. It’s something so long to convey and explain, perhaps I should merely let the music speak for itself, or fail to, if it must.

Special thanks to

  • Hugo Paris, for the mastering of this album. He also supported this album's development in his weekly chat (www.patreon.com/hugoparismusic/)
  • Chas Sheppard, who let me use some steel drum sounds that I grabbed from his excellent documentary 'sounds like steel'. I used these sounds as ambience in the song "cachureos"
  • Dorothy Zablah, Avner Peled, Tersh Ronalds, for their continuous support.