The Colombian-born, Mexico-based singer-songwriterElsa Y Elmarspent the last two years writing and recording new music.
she tellsRolling Stone.The two of them started dissecting every song, every lyric, every instrumental.
Sometime the creative process is hard because everything makes you feel like youre crazy.
Ana Lorenzana*
But to finish the album and release it means that my impulses were right.
And I want people to know that sometimes things take time, and thats okay.
Below, Elsa shares how she came up with five of the standout songs onPALACIO.
Ke MaL
This was one of my babies on the album.
Something that was important to me was to have this album feel easy.
I wanted it to feel impulsive and fun.
I said, You know what?
Today lets make a song about you.
Put your head on my head and transfer anything you want to express to the world.
We grabbed some guitars and we started to just let anything come out.
I grabbed a microphone and it was this complete torrent; the song just flowed out.
The lyrics were almost like a freestyle and boom, we recorded right after.
I can say it all happened in about two hours.
That whole process really does capture the essence ofPALACIO.
It has that grunge element.
Its about accepting a situation and not lamenting it.
When Im exploring new sounds, I attempt to be very respectful.
I dont want things to feel forced or badly executed, but this one took a lot.
It took a year to get the production right.
And whatever word Id land on, Id venture to write lyrics from there.
I wanted new words and new ideas, and thats how I built the message.
It was so complicated because I didnt want it to sound like a copy of the genre.
What can we add?
I dont know why.
Its rare for me.
But Alvaro de Lunas people wrote to me because he was coming to Mexico to do a songwriting session.
Im really possessive with my songwriting but for whatever reason, I was like, Okay.
And its funny, with Alvaro, he totally has this rock star image.
Hes like this handsome Spaniard, hes a total rock star.
And Im totally not.
But theres a line in the song: You left me on read.
He loved the song and added his part, which I thought was so fresh and smart.
If Im being honest, I was nervous about whether or not wed be compatible as artists.
We left the session with the whole song almost finished.
But its still funny to me that thats what come out of a session with a rock star.
When Im in the studio, Im always like, Lets just play and see what were feeling.
My producer Julian was just messing around with a synth and I was like, Keep going!
Querer Asi
Lately, Ive been saying thatPALACIOis about life and death and everything in between.
I went to a writing session, wondering what I was going to write about.
Ill keep you posted.
I was totally shocked.
When its a grandparent, its different because theyve lived their life already.
So this song just came out.
