Mitre, a young Mexican song writer has just released his latest album, the self titled Mitre, this is a concept album that includes collaborations with top notch artists like David Garza, Irene Diaz, Margaret Cho and others.
Mitre combines his varied musical upbringing with an almost visual touch as the music is able to transport the listener to different dimensions.
To find out more about Mitre and the album, we met up the talented singer/songwriter and here is a look into the music of Mitre.
Al Borde (AB) -Tell us about the concept for your self titled album.
Mitre – This album is very cinematic, it’s an album where the songs are about loss, death, but not necessarily death in the common sense. I wrote this album in a very organic way after having lost my two mothers (birth mother and artistic and musical mother figure) almost at the same time and I realized there were two ways of looking at death, one death being an enemy and something we don’t like or want, but it’s inevitable. After finishing the songs for the album, which flowed in a very natural way, I realized that you could also look at death in a much friendlier way, and my way was to look at it though the “Catrina” (Icon of Dia De Los Muertos), which is the Mexican death that invites you to a party after death. Mexicans see the day of the dead as day of celebration full of color, candy, drinks, flowers, etc. and this music showed me that there are other ways of looking at death, and not only death, but it could be the end of a relationship, or the end of a cycle, the end of a dream or anything that ends but one can look at it from a different perspective and have it be a moment of celebration and even a new beginning.
AB- After listening to the album, it is obvious that you have a vast knowledge of music, tell us about your musical background.
Mitre – I have played just about very musical genre there is, and I think it reflects on the music I make. Beginning at 6 years old, I studied classical piano, so Mozart, Chopin were my musical foundations, then I learned to play the guitar on my own, which led to me starting my first garage band playing underground Spanish rock, then I began to learn about the whole Spanish rock movement from its beginnings from Three Souls In My Mind up to more current times. Later on I discovered Morrisey and English rock, and then at home my mom would listen to Jorge Negrete and Chavela Vargas while my dad would listen to Elvis Presley and The Beatles, then I began to take things a little more seriously and studied song writing and composition and I even played in a Mariachi band in Plaza Garibaldi and that’s where I really learned about people like Jose Alfredo Jimenez and others and with all these different influences, I began to not believe in rules or musical barriers, I like mixing it all up like a Quentin Tarantino movie.
AB – On this album you have several collaborations, how did those come about?
Mitre- I was working at Sonic Ranch Studios in Texas where you are isolated from the outside world as it is in the middle of the dessert and many of the world’s top artists go there to record, so you end up hanging out with all these great artists from all over and since there are 5 studios, you have musicians visiting the different studios and they can jump in and play an instrument that you had never thought of, and that’s how the collaborations started, then later I met other artists that I thought would fit in well with what I was doing, like Jaime Kohen who I met in Mexico City and worked on “Depredador”. With Irene Diaz, she saw me perform at the LAMC and we met each other afterwards, but I had never seen her perform until last year when I saw her perform at the Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena, and when I heard that voice, I knew I had to get her on the album, and she appears on “Casi Un Recuerdo” which is my latest video. With Margaret Cho, the comedian, she was working on an album at Sonic Ranch Studios with David Garza, who also appears on the album, and David brought her in the studio and she liked what she heard and wanted to work together, so I thought “Bulletproof” would be perfect because it talks about not discriminating, but it does it in a very positive and fun way and it goes perfectly with Margaret’s personality.
Mitre will be presenting his new album at a free concert at the Levitt Pavilion at MacArthur Park on July 10th.
Mitre’s album can be found on iTunes and can also be streamed on Spotify.
