The esoteric inspiration for Isabella Lovestory’s newest report, “Vanity,” comes from an unlikely supply: the folkloric vampire.
“I feel like I am the vampire,” she stated between bites of tajadas, or fried plantains, contained in the Rincon Hondureño restaurant in Los Angeles. “And I’m chasing a beautiful woman, which is me.”
Legend has it that vampires can’t see themselves within the mirror, so they continue to be unaware of their very own picture; on account of that constraint, they spend their complete lives in pursuit of magnificence. This “fantastical, mythical” creature is one thing of an obsession for the Honduran experimental pop artist, and this trope is subliminally captured all through the 13 tracks on “Vanity,” which drops June 27.
“Vanity” is Isabella’s second full-length report in three years, following her dirty, neoperreo debut, “Amor Hardcore.” However that report operated with textures finest present in darkish basements and sweaty alleyways; this one is brighter, crafted from a temper board of mid-2000s membership hits and John Waters motion pictures. 4-on-the-floor 808 beats give method to booming tresillo rhythms, and at occasions, on songs like “Bling,” Isabella poses the query: What if “The Fame”-era Woman Gaga was Latina? It’s equal components electroclash and reggaeton, a post-genre mix that sounds beamed in from a dystopian future.
“It’s like a poisonous lollipop,” she stated. “I’m always interested in contrast and tension, and I never want to be just one thing. I always wanna have that contrast.”
It’s additionally deeply descriptive, with a becoming concentrate on the self’s visage. On the title observe, Isabella likens herself to “una botella de perfume / un objeto hecho de espuma,” that can be a “fantasía que no puedo controlar.” Different songs, just like the phonk music-adjacent “Perfecta” and “Gorgeous,” converse of being excellent like a model and “elegante como una esmeralda andante.” The lyrics are ripped out of a dream journal, conjured from evocative recollections of affection and lust.
By all accounts, Isabella Lovestory, born Isabella Rodríguez Rivera, is her personal self-sustaining pop star. Born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, she immigrated to the US as a teen, attending highschool in Virginia earlier than relocating to Montreal at 17. It offers her music a sophisticated high quality, mirrored in multilingual tracks like “Eurotrash,” which Rivera sings in English, Spanish and French.
This, alongside together with her practice-based arts schooling, injects a punk ethos into her artistry and makes her — in her phrases — “scrappy as hell.”
Once I requested Rivera what she is liable for in her camp, she laughed and stated, “Everything.” That features all image-related sides of her artistry, from making her album paintings to enhancing her movies.
And in that lies one other attention-grabbing rigidity: the concept of self-sustaining pop superstar, straddling these two worlds of DIY inventiveness and image-heavy publicity. It’s one thing she likens, at a number of factors, to efficiency artwork, this concept of projecting ahead somebody you’re not.
“Isabella Lovestory is a very complex persona,” Rivera stated. “I think it’s more like an expression of my inner world … like I have a little projector and Isabella Lovestory’s a hologram of what goes on inside my heart.”
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
The storytelling in your albums is immersive. How do you are feeling like “Vanity” is increasing the Isabella Lovestory cinematic universe? For this one, I’m exhibiting a extra susceptible aspect and a softer aspect that I haven’t proven earlier than. The final report, “Amor Hardcore,” was extra reggaeton, and I used to be experimenting with what I might do with that sound. It had a extra old-school vibe, I used to be like a rebellious-teenager-badass-b—. And this one, I’m nonetheless a badass b—. [Laughs] However I feel I’m exhibiting extra of my sweeter aspect, my extra susceptible, dreamier aspect. It’s extra of a really deep look into the mirror.
Is that the thesis assertion for the report?I feel so. It’s kinda like “Alice in Wonderland” in that means. The place you fall right into a rabbit gap, and also you enter a mirror, and there’s no means out. It’s psychedelic. You’ve completely different layers and completely different sounds, but it surely’s all a part of one tunnel.
Is that what you’re making an attempt to say concerning the idea of self-importance? That it’s a rabbit gap? Precisely. I feel it’s a endless evil cycle, but it surely’s additionally very stunning. Sins are a part of our expertise as folks on this world. I’m ridiculing it in a means, the place I let it take over me, however I additionally take it over.
Being a pop star is so new to me, you realize? I turned a public particular person, and having my face be my software and my cash maker is loopy to me. It’s me coping with that: the darkness of magnificence and the darkness of a saturated world of photographs that we’ve got to continuously cope with.
What’s on the temper board for “Vanity”? What had been you listening to and enthusiastic about? I used to be additionally watching plenty of Fellini, John Waters and Outdated Hollywood motion pictures. I really like absurd humor and the absurdity in gluttony and wonder, making enjoyable of the stereotypes that we dwell in. That is what I’m doing with my challenge. I’m actually into fairy tales, however twisted ones, like [in the movie] “Donkey Skin.” It’s absurd, very darkish, but it surely seems so shiny and colourful and so childlike.
I felt the fairy story in “Fresa Metal.” That music begins with this thunderstorm soundscape, after which you’ve gotten a “Dracula”-esque synthesizer are available in. It feels such as you’re establishing a damsel-in-distress narrative. “Fresa Metal” was impressed by this dream I had, the place there was this report label constructing. And this pop star that was working on the label. However the constructing was constructed on an underground basement the place vampires lived, after which they seize the pop star, they usually kidnap her and make her work underground.
I’m not a really logical particular person, I at all times failed [at] math, so I simply assume in photographs on a regular basis. My final purpose is to be a director. Once I began making music, it was so thrilling to me as a result of I might make my cowl artwork, I might direct my very own movies. I might do all my costumes. In the end, I need to make a film, after which do the rating, after which star in it.
Do you are feeling such as you had been treading new sonic floor on “Vanity” or simply increasing upon what you had been doing on “Amor Hardcore”?It’s positively going into new territories. I used to be scared to indicate softer sides, as a result of folks love aggression; it’s what’s popping proper now. Like Charli [XCX] or Nettspend, it’s simply actually, actually loud. So I used to be fearful of doing one thing that’s completely different. However on the similar time, it challenged me to go deeper. I adore it to be actually colourful in something I do, and in addition for it to really feel like a curler coaster, which is what I really like about Okay-pop.
One thing I discover attention-grabbing about your initiatives is that all of them have intro tracks. What’s the significance of an intro observe to you? It’s an ode to that custom in old-school reggaeton. The intro observe is pure experimentation, as a result of you may have freedom in doing one thing that stands alone and isn’t essentially a observe. You possibly can simply give the album that cherry on prime.
Once I take heed to old-school reggaeton albums, they’d a lot enjoyable as a result of it was such a brand new style again then. Particularly within the early 2000s. They’d that rawness of doing one thing for enjoyable, and plenty of curiosity. They didn’t have guidelines on how one can make one thing.
I can see that. “Vanity Intro” has this sonic palette the place you’re establishing a traditional pop report, after which a reggaeton beat comes into the again half, straight smacking issues collectively.Like, you hear [sound effects like] a fragrance bottle. You hear a automotive screeching. It permits you to have somewhat mini-movie in your head, which is one thing tremendous vital to me in all of the songs: for everyone to create their very own little dreamscape of what’s occurring.
In “Eurotrash,” you utilize a number of voices and singing types. How do you method your vocals? On this music particularly, there’s each this seductive whisper and this exaggerated, bimbo breathiness. What I really like about old-school reggaeton, once more, is that they at all times had these duos: [one with] the raspier, extra masculine voice, and [the other with] the high-pitched singing voice. I like to create completely different characters in a music, and I really like distinction in each single means.
You’ve crafted a singular place for your self in each pop and Latin music. Do you are feeling like you’ve gotten contemporaries or imitators?The curse of doing one thing for the primary time, or doing one thing you don’t see occurring, is that individuals will take these very genuine features of the underground and curate them with a inventive group to make them mainstream years later.
Particularly as a Honduran immigrant, I really feel like there’s plenty of erasure. There’s not plenty of Honduran folks doing stuff, as a result of it’s a f— corrupt authorities in Honduras, and other people undergo, the artwork suffers. There’s stunning expertise, there’s stunning music, it’s a gorgeous nation. However I feel in transferring round a lot, I by no means actually had a spot the place I felt supported by a neighborhood in that means.
I created my very own neighborhood myself by way of the web, or turning into buddies with the outcasts and the underground. It’s like a blessing and a curse, you realize? However it’s my life, and I feel I’ll at all times be the underground, quirked-up shawty for certain.
