How Mabe Fratti turned self-doubt into her boldest music yet

When you listen in Mabe Fratti's music, it's hard to imagine the artist being nervous. She can sing in a way that sounds tender and vulnerable, yet there is also a strength to her. Her cello—her primary instrument, though she incorporates other acoustic and electronic sounds into her productions—can evoke any emotion, from sweet to terrifying.

However, the Guatemalan musician admits that while she's excited about the music she's about to drop, she's also a little unsure. Her fourth solo album titled Sentir Que No Sabesfeatures more traditional song structures and much more percussion than her previous releases, pushing her into new territory.

“It's a good but strange feeling,” she says as she sips mezcal with tonic water at a quaint cantina near her apartment in Mexico City's Obrera neighborhood.. “I've never done extreme sports, but I think it's a similar feeling.”

Fratti shouldn't worry too much. Sentir Que No Sabes may be more traditional in structure, but these songs have a bold spirit. Fratti's soulful delivery is louder than ever, reminding listeners of the qualities that have won her worldwide acclaim and garnered her fans in Latin America, the US and Europe, while touring and playing festivals such as Primavera Sound , Rewire and Le Guess Who. ? It has also been recognized by artists such as Oneohtrix Point Never and Efterklang. Rolling rock has placed her albums on year-end lists for the past two years

For this album, Fratti wanted to work closely with Hector Tosta, her partner and live musician who is also one half of their joint project, Titanic. Tosta also records as I. La Católica and here, he acted as producer and arranger. They started the process by discussing what Fratti wanted for this record while hanging out on the porch of the apartment where they live together. They were listening to a ton of music, including a lot of Lenny Kravitz, most notably reflected in the album's opening track, “Kravitz.”

Fratti's solo work has been experimental and quite open, but this time, she and Tosta were determined to delve into traditional songwriting. “Hector studied composition and likes well-crafted songs,” says Fratti. “We talked about creating traditional songs [and] at first I was like “No, what do you mean?” It was something new for me.”

He adds that they entered the project first. “We had dug into these songs really deep,” he says. “We would wake up and start working on them and then go to sleep after working all day. We only took one day off and when we did, we felt guilty. It was all about getting into the universe of each song and having a ton of dialogue around its aesthetic. It was a learning and unlearning process. We went over every detail of each song and I think they sound very organized and very well cut. They had excellent care, guey!”

Once the songs were finished, the plan was to book studio time to get the best sounds out of Fratti's cello and vocals. She's proud of what she's accomplished with her computer, two-channel interface, and “very, very basic mixing skills” in the past, but now she wanted something more expansive. They spent time recording at Soy Sauce and Pedro Y El Lobo Studios, both in Mexico City, add drummer Gibrán Andrade and trumpeter Jacob Wick to the team. They also worked at Willem Twee Studios in Den Bosch in the Netherlands. As the album came together, he captured Fratti's best performance with “just EQ and compression.”

“There's almost nothing there,” he says. “It's a very classic kind of mix.”

Sentir Que No Sabes it's a development for Fratti. He had a “strictly classical” musical upbringing in Guatemala City, where he grew up. Soon, she met other musicians—some around the church her family attended—who introduced her to a wide range of music. After playing as much as he could in Guatemala, he was invited to a residency in Mexico City. fell in love with the city's live music scene, especially the free improv contingent. After a few years, he joined it, learning how to improvise and playing in several different ensembles. In 2019, her first album was released, Pies Sobre La Tierra, via Hole Records, a label run by Mexico City heavy psych trio Tajak. Around that time, a friend in Guatemala met someone signed to the British label Tin Angel Records, who eventually signed Fratti.

Since then, Fratti has been on a constant sonic journey, going from stress to stress Pies Sobre La Tierra towards expansion Será Que Ahora Podremos Entendernos (2021) in the auspicious Se Ve Desde Aquí (2022), not to mention her many collaborations and side projects. She notes that on her first record, she relied on ambient textures, reverb and auto-tune as “aesthetic choices” to achieve a certain atmosphere. While she has let go of some of these elements, she still questions her process, which is reflected in the album's title, which translates to “feeling like you don't know.”

“In general, my process is a constant questioning of what I'm doing,” he says. “[It’s also] always learning something new, learning about the things I like and using them, and it doesn't have to be music. I love white light, which means I like a raw, very grounded and not too formal aesthetic. How can I translate this into music? How do you micro-dose what you like and use it in your life and creative process? I feel like each album is a different approach to the same process. I don't always have to be the same person.”

Fratti notes that the album's title comes from a very honest feeling, which she describes as “like staring into space”. By trying many different things, she let her self-doubt become something positive. “To say something with great confidence is not easy [for me]”, he admits. “I think I'm a very confused person, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I empathize with insecure people because I'm a very insecure person,” she adds with a laugh.

In addition to her solo work, Fratti spends a lot of time playing with different musicians and in side projects. Besides Titanic, her other prominent band is Amor Muere, an experimental four-piece unit. “I feel very lucky because, on the one hand with Titanic, Hector is more or less academic. Of [amazing to] work with a person who has all these technical skills, and on the other hand there is Amor Muere [which] it is like a collective… Gibrana [Cervantes, violin] he's also an academic, but she's very open-minded, camille [Mandoki, vocals and keyboards] it's very mental when it comes to sounds, Concepcion [Huerta, tape manipulation] it's very visual… They give me the tools to approach the sounds and every now and then it makes me learn about myself.”

With Sentir Que No Sabes, Fratti continues a brilliant streak. She may not have concrete answers, but she continues to remake her music into something beautiful and unlike anything else out there. She is sure to continue to gain more fans. When asked about the impact her music has already had, she seems slightly overwhelmed but also giddy. “It's exciting and nerve-wracking,” he says. “I can not believe it. Sometimes I get imposter syndrome. It's crazy when you see things happen up close, like, “Oh, that's how it works.” [This is] an industry with structure and priorities and things don't become popular just because of good music,” he says. “I feel very lucky.”