A song is born in a room in a house in Montevideo. The songwriter hums a melody while strumming a guitar. When he has found the rhythm and tempo, he grabs a piece of paper and vomits a section of the lyrics, drawing from his emotions. That might seem like the end of the story, but no. The song is then recorded, before traveling via telephone to another room in the same city. Once it’s been heard in that room, it draws in another guitar and gains some new notes, words, and colours. The song passes back and forth until it has taken shape, through the addition of instruments, voices, and textures, then it journeys to another room in the same city. This time it’s a room owned by two clothing designers seeking inspiration for their new collection, and they are moved by what they hear. A light shines through in the song, but it needs more input, so it’s poised for another journey. This time, it travels thousands of kilometers, to a room in faraway Mexico that’s home to a visual artist. He listens to it, thinks about it, and then discusses it with the people who sent it to him and, feeling just as moved as them, sends it back to its point of origin—only this time, in the form of illustrations that will close this circle of inspiration. Something that had existed on the air, traveling through space and minds, now takes on another form, and is captured in an original piece of clothing. The connections between different disciplines and sensibilities have created a new identity. The song isn’t a song any longer, it’s thread on fabric, a red-crested cardinal, a thistle and a cocoon, which contain the yearning for change—to burn everything and start afresh. It’s the act of rebirth.

This is a creation story, and it’s also the story of Martín, Camila, Balam, Amalia and Uzi, and of how a song, “Emisora Galaxia,” connected them and took on another form, on a journey that binds Uruguay to Mexico, before finally returning as the signature look from the new collection from New Braves.

MARTÍN & CAMILA

Martín Rivero describes himself as a creator of songs, his own and others. He sings in his own band, Astroboy, and in Campo, a project of fellow musician Juan Campodónico, as well as performing as a solo artist.

When he performed his second solo album, “The foam of the hours,” he invited another band to join him on stage: Niña Lobo, with Camila Rodriguez as the lead singer. As they performed, their admiration for one another grew, and they kindled a desire to create something together.

Camila makes music with her band and for soundtracks. She has a distinctive taste for the everyday: for “bringing to light what’s already there, and finding a link between that everyday thing and a more poetic or romantic view of life.”

One day, in an unknown location somewhere in the city of Montevideo (Martín says he doesn’t play in any particular place, he just needs someplace he can concentrate), the seed of “Emisora Galaxia” was born. It had a shape already, but something wasn’t working. He didn’t like the chorus, or the melody either. Then he thought of Camila.

The song dropped into her living room, where she has a space for composing, with all the equipment she needs to work and make music. The space is dominated by an enormous window that shows the city skyline. Sometimes she finds herself sitting in an armchair by the window, hoping that inspiration will be born from contemplation. Camila doesn’t remember precisely, but she was probably listening to The Alan Parsons Project—the band of the famous British producer and musician—in the background, or in her head, when she started working on the song.

Martín doesn’t remember what he was listening to while he wrote it, nor what he was reading, but he does remember very well a book that fell into his hands not long after, and which felt like a sibling to the song: “Years after writing it, I read How to Set a Fire and Why, by Jesse Ball, which really captivated and moved me. I think it has a lot in common with the song, just from another perspective.”

Camila didn’t ask many questions—not where the initial lyrics came from, nor whether Martín had a particular plan in mind for it. She took as her starting point the idea of the parallel universes that can live in our minds, in the imaginal plane—things that live in an alternate universe that exists in only one place: our heads. This process led her to the guitar and gave a new meaning to the song, which returned via audio and text messages to the place it had come from, but in a new form.

The original song had gained a melody, lyrics, and everything else Martín had been searching for but couldn’t find. “I loved it,” he says decisively. “Emisora Galaxia” went back and forth several times, in a process that went on for years. At first it was a classic Beatles-style song, but later it took on other dimensions, gaining a more ethereal, starry sound thanks to the contributions of other collaborators: Agustín Ferrando, who created the atmosphere; Guillermo Berta, who recorded the voices; and Nicolás Demczylo, who mixed and mastered it.

The song was ready. It was time to send it on another journey, to let it inspire and pave the way for other creative forms and formats, which would be born in the orbit of its melody and lyrics.

AMALIA & UZI

Amalia Branaa and Uzi Sabah are life partners and creative partners. Together, they run New Braves, a “conscious clothing laboratory”, as one description of the project puts it. They don’t draw their inspiration from a single place; it can bubble up anywhere. For them, the road and car journeys represent a kind of optimal ecosystem for unleashing creativity. As they contemplate the landscape passing by rapidly, they’re flooded with concepts and ideas, techniques to try out, faces and names or people they want to join forces and collaborate with.

Amalia remembers listening to “Emisora Galaxia” for the first time on one of those journeys. “I feel like I heard it for the first time in the car. Uzi played it to me. Martín had shared a demo with him.” They immediately connected with the song’s lyrics and spirit. The song wasn’t like other songs; instead, it sparked memories of colours and landscapes, flowering thistles, yellow grass, and rocks painted white, grey, and green by lichen.

While he was writing the song, Martín had played it to Uzi one afternoon while he was at Uzi’s house. Along with chats about existentialism, science fiction, and the end of the world, sharing creative work in progress is a central part of the connection between these three. Martín says he was the one who proposed that the song could morph into other forms. He says: “I like the idea of crossing over between different worlds. They told me that they had liked the song very much and asked me if I was going to release it, and that’s when I suggested that they use it to do something with New Braves.”

Amalia and Uzi liked the idea that “Emisora Galaxia” could be more than a song; that they could stretch the typical parameters of songwriting. “We resonated with the idea of burning everything and starting from scratch, and the fact that, in a way, the lyrics expressed our feelings about society today,” says Amalia.

The first exchange was complete. Now all that was left was for the third piece of the puzzle to capture on canvas what was emerging from this new incarnation of the song, born in a room in Montevideo and enriched by existential and philosophical discussions. And that response would come from a little farther afield.

Balam Bartolomé describes himself as a “Tlacuilo and “terra”pist. Ocosingan” (from Ocosingo in the state of Chiapas) and also “Tlatelolca” (from Tlatelolco in Mexico City). Tlacuilo is a Nahuatl word, meaning “the one who writes with paint” or “the one who works with wood or stone”.

His friendship with Amalia and Uzi goes back years. They met in Montevideo, during a period Balam spent living there. He summarizes this experience as, “A journey to find myself, starting with what connects me to and distances me from other cultures.” Their friendship deepened in New York, where their paths crossed again at another point in life. Balam says living together in these two cities gave them a sense of being bonded, and a deep mutual fondness and care.

One day, a New Braves newsletter arrived in Balam’s mailbox, and that was where he learned of the collaboration between New Braves and Fran, a Uruguayan artist he had known during his days in Montevideo. This discovery sparked in him the idea of reaching out to Amalia and Uzi to suggest that they collaborate on a project. “I realized it would be a great way of feeling close to Ama and Uzi,” he remembers warmly.

Everything began to come together. To Amalia and Uzi, Balam seemed like the missing connection, the puzzle piece they had needed to complete the process they had embarked upon some time before. “He’s an artist who speaks about these ideas in his work, who interrogates the forms and ideologies in which we seek refuge. He’s a philosopher as well as a great illustrator,” they said about the man who writes with paint.

And this was how while he was making his first coffee of the day one Mexican morning, two hours ahead of Uruguay’s morning, Balam started listening to “Emisora Galaxia”. The song reminded him of the deep affinity he had perceived between “Uruguayan people and music”. Along with this thought came images and sensations: fire, a torch, ash, love, and loss flashed through his mind.

New Braves asked him to base his ideas on a project he was already developing: some cocoons made from different materials. Amalia says: “The idea of the cocoon speaks to the positive aspect of burning everything down; the other side of it. We wanted to incorporate that idea. Hope, rebirth, the green shoots and the flowers that appear, and the beauty that returns.”

The thistle and its flower, a resilient plant typical of our landscape; the cardinal and its red crest, a bird native to Uruguay; and the cocoon, signifying transformation and home (“something that cradles a living being so that it can be transformed and reborn into something beautiful, like a butterfly,” Balam says), were conceived in a back and forth of ideas, and later became illustrations signed by an artist who says everything on Earth is a possible influence. All of these elements, which began as a song, today form part of the signature look of an original clothing collection that can be summed up in one word: rebirth.

Listen >>>
”Emisora Galaxia”
Martin Rivero

MARTIN:

«I love it! I think every ten years, people go through a change that makes them feel like they’re being reborn. On the cellular level, we experience a regeneration that produces a kind of biological and physical rebirth. We might not always feel it, but if we’re mindful, the process can give us some perspective on our lives. New life is implicit in the concept of rebirth. And if we consider the Renaissance (rebirth) idea that everything is connected by a sort of universal sympathy, we see that everything doesn’t have to be so individualist as it seems these days. The connections between everything in existence can help us to see life in a more integrated way».

CAMILA:

«There’s a hidden tenderness in the song, and that found its way into the clothes».

AMALIA & UZI:

«This is the side of the coin we chose: burn everything and be reborn».

BALAM:

«It’s one of a few reflections that always appear in my work and my creative process. The notion of transformation, which in some ways means the rebirth of matter, a communion of being and doing. I’ve had a relationship with death since I was a child (my mother died when I was ten years old), so I’ve always had these existential questions. I suppose the idea of rebirth also includes the desire for more time, for a longer life».