Many of the best things are those that are born spontaneously, those that are allowed to flow. Eager to take on the world, Irene López, Gabriel Nóbrega and Freddy Méndez -also known as Irepelusa, Frank Lucas and Veztalone- came together by fate in 2016 in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, and since then they have been united as motherflowers. Together they have managed to conquer both the national scene and cross geographical barriers with their tropical flow, thousands of things to say and an indefinable style.
The first song that came out of their meeting was “Morrogaite“, but it was not until three years later that his first self-titled EP was released. During all these years, they have published songs and collaborations that have made their sound evolve until it becomes what we see with their most recent album, retrofuturismpsychotropical. With 17 songs and over an hour in length, this first full-length varies moods, genres and writing styles, but still maintains a cohesion that prevents it from feeling like a compilation.
“We are lucky that we know our identity -says Veztalone in conversation with indie today-. Regardless of the challenge, the base, the instrumental or the genre, we keep playing Motherflowers and that’s exactly what makes all the songs belong in one place”. The band explores in a natural way, they let it be, they even make it seem simple, but the listener is constantly expecting to be surprised.. There is also no story, despite the fact that they have themes that narrate endings or deaths such as “Macundales” Y “Tortoiseshell“. “We like to close cycles, to psychologically kill what no longer adds up -says the rapper about the processes behind the album-. There was not much preparation beforehand because there were not many doubts. We knew what we were building and that it didn’t need more rules or context, it had to flow as it came flowing.”
That mixture and curiosity to explore new ways of making music is what is captured in the title of the LP. “At first, ‘psychotropical’ was more like the first EP we put out and it was the first adjective that half encompassed our aesthetic, even on the cover of that project,” explains Veztalone. The idea of ’retrofuturism’ appeared with his theme “supertaxi” of 2020. “There we said ‘this is retrofuturistic’ and we started using it for a lot of things -adds the rapper-. At the end we said: these two invented aspects, combined, represent us, we are going to unite them in what we believe is the album that defines our entire soundor at least the starting point of the whole Motherflowers sound.”
The three members of Motherflowers are characterized by being focused on what they are passionate about. Before joining to form the group whose name refers to the song “Daydreaming” of Lavoe-Colón —already one of the most used profanities in Venezuela, “cunt of your mother”—, each one was interested in different parts of art. Irepelusa was from the age of 8 to 12 as a violinist in the System of Orchestras of Venezuela and wanted to explore new instruments; Vezta felt the need to express his dissatisfaction with the world through the composition of songs; and Frank Lucas approached art thanks to his father and his love for poetry. His paths came together in 2016 when they made contact on the Paseo Colón in Puerto La Cruz. Some time later, they connected when Frank decided to record his first song with Veztalone as producer and Ire as company. “They came to my house and we met musically. That’s when I made a match with Irene’s voice and music, I began to understand Frank’s music.. At that moment is where the union of us as a team was conceived, ”says Veztalone.
Since then they have been creating their songs until reaching retrofuturismpsychotropical, coming together in the studio to design them and bring their ideas to life. “Each song is a world. There are some that are born from one of us, others from all of us, some we structure giving priority to the music, others that the message has the importance”, comments the rapper. His system has no rigidity, like nature. “There is no methodology, we have several and one of them is washiwasheo, which is like a scat in which we improvise lines and flow lines until you get the best out of the beats and then it works to create the lyrics,” he adds.
In this way, pieces like “The living room“, a film song that transports us to a house where cumbia sounds and different situations take place. Veztalone explains how it came about: “It is one of those songs that the three of us did not do together, but rather it came as an idea from Frank Lucas, the whole context and the idea of doing a storytelling, which is very narrative and too cinematographic, everything comes from him. He brought a complete verse and it was already a song, but I said: ‘That’s it, man, this can be enhanced to another level if we do a chorus with Ire’. I always end up adding more in the production part than anything else and I already add a few verses. But my contribution always has to do with the structure and the way in which they develop. I followed the game of storytelling so as not to break with any of that”.
Each one is completely different from the other. On the one hand, there is Irepelusa, which is the most indie; Frank Lucas, the urban mainstream; and Vezta, the most rapper. And they strengthen those differences by blending them into Motherflowers because, as Vezta says, “It is the most pop face of each one, it is the space where we allow ourselves to be like that and from that there is everything that we consume and love, from MTV and from a lot of things that were sold from the pop of the nineties. We managed to merge it knowing that the priority is the song and that we must use our powers or our natural associations for and for the song. Understanding that, we can easily integrate to make a work”.
All this is also reflected in his careful and calculated visual works. “Motherflowers is colorful, we associate it with diversity and visual impact with the correct combination of colors -explains Vezta-. In the visual part, there are influences from indie, vaporwave and fi, that in the end the latter ends up merging with the first two. It can also be said that there is a 90s, 80s influence from our parents who were very present figures”. After having the disc ready, they made a study of what were the colors that represented each of the characteristics that make up retrofuturismpsychotropical. “We sent a table with percentages that we felt each song had of retro, futuristic and tropical to the designer with which he built all the individual artwork for each of the tracks,” says the rapper.
To get into the Motherflowers universe, according to the band, the best songs to start with are “What do you want from me?” (“the most heartfelt”), “Awakate” (“the most pop”) and “May 33” (“in the top three of our favorites”). His repertoire is like a queen pepiada arepa. “I think it has its portion of various little things, it has its colors, orange, green, it has its little sauce and it’s Venezuelan,” jokes Vezta.
This first album is just the beginning of the path of Motherflowers, one in which music will not be lacking. “I don’t want to say that the best is coming because I’m not sure if the one we made is already the best, but music is coming, one made with more maturity, affection and the desire to always be the best version of us”, concludes Veztalone. retrofuturismpsychotropical It’s not just an album, it’s an experience that we all must experience, one with which we can connect and explore other facets not only of each one of the members of the band, but of ourselves. Because each one has its retro, futuristic and psychotropic side, like life itself.
Listen to motherflowers on streaming platforms (Spotify, tide, Apple Music).
Motherflowers: “The band is the most pop face of each one of us”