Carlota Marques: “Feeling fear which is usually a sign that I should go for it”
Carlota Marques (Photo: Katja Ruge)
Coming from the Balearic islands, the techno sound cultivated by Carlota Marques is crispy, warm, playful and underlined with a deep textual emotional memory. She definitely has a thing for loops, but also loves to leave the ongoing patterns for some loose time.
In opposite to the diy fraction of producers in the field of electronic music, Carlota studied sound engineering – and made her degree. Hearing her production it comes not by surprise she works primarily with modular synths. Her debut ep “The Bow” was released in 2020 through Trip Recordings, the Moscow based label imprint run by Nina Kravitz.
Carlota, what is your favorite app/technology/instrument to create sounds with?
My eurorack modular system, dyi field recording, acoustic instruments and vocals combined with digital/analog processing, but I don’t rely in a specific way of creating sounds.
What is your ideal space/place to listen to music?
On the plane.
What empowers you or helps you to overcome obstacles and challenges in your work?
I think because the nature of the mind is often trying to negotiate and convince you not to do it, I try to keep this in mind and push through the obstacles, specially when I’m feeling fear which is usually a sign that I should go for it.
Carlota Marques (Photo: Katja Ruge)
Do you see a connection between your femininity and your work? And if so what is it?
I care a lot about learning tools and ways of decoding what’s defining my identity throughout the multicultural prism we are exposed to, that necessarily brings definitions and stigmas on concepts such as what does femininity or being a woman mean. My idea is that everyone, regardless of the gender, has to be considered human first. I refuse the notions of the eternal feminine and masculine, I feel the urge to change my perception towards the subjugation imposed throughout societal old fashioned structure and rules.
I think there has been a lot of repression on both female and male lineages through centuries in most cultures, and a way of exploring that as a human and breaking through it, is by exploring the concept of freedom and the responsibility that comes with it, taking accountability and action towards a release of the mental traps that don’t contribute to a full acceptance of my persona and my own relationship with confidence.
How to create a new narrative for me to live accordingly to my own standards is something that music and sonic explorations have allowed me to go deeper into the matter.
What do you hope to find in music?
I feel a commitment to deliver something that is unique to how I create music, something that reflects how I see the creative process.
Attempting to challenge the ways I think and perceive sound and reality, to hopefully achieve something that is closer to my essence.
For me, music is a powerful communication channel, where one can experience non-ordinary states of consciousness and where energetic exchanges happen. It is like a portal for deeper levels of consciousness. The music that induces me to connect with deeper levels of the inner world is the music that is most inspiring.
Aesthetically, I think the big emphasis has been on this idea on songs that have unconventional structures, it is for me the most fun to play and listen to, because of this sense of openness in the evolution of the track.
Carlota Marques (Photo: Katja Ruge)
What do you prefer, the seclusive working process in a studio or the live presentation of your music in front of the audience?
I experience both practices as equally meaningful, it is like a dance of connectivity, where a giving and receiving dynamic takes place, both collectively and personally.
Both environments offer me an opportunity for undressing the self towards a vulnerable position.
The studio is like a conductor for intimacy and allows me to open up in ways I otherwise wouldn’t facing an audience. There is a sense of privacy that allows my subconscious to be expressed whether it is through sound or any artistic tool I may use. I experience it as an emotional alchemy, a process that becomes a meditative experience leading towards moments of revelation that are brief and ecstatic, freeing the realm of imagination, of possibility. It is at first euphoric, because the wildest ideas can prosper and new forms can be applied to all relations.
It is a safe space where I can experiment and question the nature and relevance of sound in the sensorial world and cosmic planes.
During Live performances, everyone is communing via sound. Getting back to music, to musical events and to a collective space while losing track of the fact that you are playing a show is really enjoyable.
Such environments speak to other contemporary concerns, I think our lives are even more pressured, regimented, and time managed. With the increasing demand to be productive and efficient, our public spaces are often condemned and policed. This is why there is an urge for fantasy, dreams and to let loose which is my main attempt when I play music. Freedom is not a state to take it for granted, and through dance and music we remind ourselves of the value.
This interview with Carlota Marques is part of the ongoing photo-project “Electric Lights – Women in Electronic Music” by Hamburg based photographer Katja Ruge and Kaput co-publisher Thomas Venker focused on the role of women in electronic music.
Each photoshoot is accompanied by a short interview, based on a personalised questionnaire. The interviews will be published on the kaput website on a monthly basis, before finding their way into a book.
