Unsettling and engaging in equal measure (…) MUZIKALIA Fidel Oltra
A former member of one of the most extraordinary bands of the Mediterranian Coast of Spain, Método Milton, and for reasons that transcend cosmic alignment, Nerea Lecue encased for the first time this, her most intimate and liberating alter ego, in 2005: Thérèse. At that time, the Alicante artist lived in Portland, Maine, and shared a roof with the local band from Boston, Cerberus Shoal, in a house with rooms such as art studios, a room that was a kitchen and a rehearsal room, and the constant visiting of musician friends on tour… It was then that a collective project called Earbait (in which someone composed a song, the rest of the members were only given the lyrics and everyone had to make their own version with it) produced a rapid response: based on a lyric by Colleen Kinsella (multifaceted artist, member of Cerberus Shoal, Fire on Fire and Big blood) Nerea recorded, with Caleb Mulkerin at the controls, a piece that blew the mind of those who were present. Then Mulkerin asked her, -What name do we give you? (…) Nerea, who had been greatly shocked by Balthus’ 1938 work earlier in the year, answered -Thérèse (…).
After her return to Spain, Thérèse offers her first concerts and publishes ‘Nadadores’, EP of 2008, and ‘Impermeable’, his first album in 2011, both under the American label Don’t trust the ruin. Now, eight years later and settled permanently in Madrid, the Alicante artist returns with this second and fascinating LP entitled ‘Un paseo por el campo’ (‘A walk through the field’).
Lyrics, then music: With the ‘Earbait idea’ as a method of composition, Thérèse has produced an album that starts from sarcasm as an interpellation fabric with the image represented. Grotesque, extreme, contradictory and at times beautiful and inexplicable, her writing is able to somatize the alien hostility in a disproportionate tumor, to incubate a creature in our image and likeness. All with a single purpose: to unchain destruction and the arrangement, promote catharsis, the assumption on the edge of disenchantment, and transcend, at last, fear. In her own words -I’m a music teacher. One day, when proposing love as a musical theme, a child drew a couple holding hands and wrote the phrase ‘Love, sweet love, and a walk in the countryside’ (…).
