VIP No.4 / 2023 Interview with Las Áñez

We spoke with the powerful twin duo Las Áñez, who are coming to conquer the Cordillera Festival with their vocal interplay and minimalist, roots-inspired sound. Find out everything below:

1. You just released your latest album: “Paralelas” (Parallels), a name that, in a way, reflects the duo you form as twins and also hints at what you'll find here. What's your new work about? What can we expect from each of these eight songs?

The name definitely relates to being twins. We've been on the same path for many years, both personally and musically. However, on this fourth album, we continue with vocal interplay, with that playful aspect of wanting one voice to contrast with and complement the other at all times. What's special about this work is that it's more of a team effort, from production to handling by Andrés Leal and Miguel Rico, two friends from university. You have to listen to their releases. And this fourth album by Las Áñez features the three songs we considered our main tracks, which we released in 2022: "Como si fuera yo" (As If It Were Me) in collaboration with Lido Pimienta, "Señal del Viento" (Signal of the Wind) in collaboration with Cholo Valderrama, and "De Curvo Cuerpo" (Of a Curved Body), a song about women that was very well received because many people identified with it. Each song has a minimalist format, but most of them feature a powerful sound production and a slightly more electronic feel compared to our other albums.

2. Your musical style has often been described as a play of voices, mixed with electronic textures capable of creating unique atmospheres. But we'd like you to tell us, for Las Áñez, what does your own music sound like?

Actually, it's difficult for musicians to define ourselves. For us, each song is like an idea that runs from beginning to end, and more than just background music, it's an idea, with something we wanted to express both sonically and lyrically. We also hear music that is very vocal; without the voices, it wouldn't be the same music. What else do we hear? We hear moments of depth that we include at points that seem very important to us, moments that complete or frame the song. But also, moments of lightness, magic, or playfulness, which are found in the very high notes that appear at specific moments. We also notice a lot of minimalism in our own music; even though sometimes a song might be highly produced, we only keep what we consider essential to show in each song.

3. The Cordillera Festival is approaching, and one of its main slogans is that it's a meeting of Latin American sounds. For you, and from a musical perspective, what does it mean to be Latin American in these times?

For us, it's wonderful to be part of the Cordillera Festival because it's Latin American. Actually, even though Latin America is so diverse and vast, we do feel Latin American. We think that for the first time, since the festival poster was announced, seeing our name makes us feel very Latin American. That's a beautiful thing to say, knowing that there's incredible diversity within Latin American music because it's not just music that sounds very Latin American, but music that's made from here, from that perspective that isn't really one perspective, but many, and we really like being one of those perspectives. Our way of feeling Latin American is definitely through music. We include influences from folklore, sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious, sometimes not. But folklore, any rhythm from our country or our neighbors, has always influenced us, so we're very happy to be on the lineup because we're Latin American.

4. Taking advantage of this opportunity, we'd like to take a trip down memory lane. The soul of Las Áñez is that they are twins. What was it like growing up surrounded by music, and especially with such a unique closeness?

Being twins has definitely influenced our sound, because we try to make music that speaks very honestly, very transparently, very personally. We are very close in every sense, and we are a team whose sound has also become very strong. Singing separately, we didn't feel we had such a specific, powerful sound as we did together. And, as artists searching for our own sound, that possibility captivated us. That sound isn't just in how our two voices sound when singing together, but also in the fact that we have a very similar way of thinking, and that we complement each other. Las Áñez wouldn't be what it is if it weren't the two of us, and not just the two voices, but these two minds uniting their ideas, which are so similar, yet constantly complementing each other.

5. Continuing our conversation about the Cordillera Festival and where you'll be performing, what can we expect from Las Áñez at the festival?

At the Cordillera Festival, we'll be presenting a couple of new songs from our album Paralelas, which was released this year and which we haven't performed much in Bogotá or Colombia. We're saving a very special moment to present some of these songs live for the first time, and the Cordillera Festival will be one of those opportunities—a place to play a couple of these songs for the first time in our own city.

6. To wrap things up, we'd like you to recommend a national artist and a Latin American artist that we should be listening to right now.

Wow! Latin American artists—there must be so many to recommend, and many that we don't know yet. For now, we'll just recommend those we know very well because they've sung with us, and we can recommend them with great enthusiasm. Aterciopelados, Lido Pimienta, Cholo Valderrama, Lucio Feuillet, El Tullero Ilustrado, Los Rolling Ruanas, and many more. And on the day we're playing, Sunday, September 24th, we're really looking forward to seeing Ile—we love her so much—Vicente García, who else do I remember, Cuarteto de Nos, who have some really cool lyrics, Juanes, who has some great recent songs to listen to, Juan Pablo Vega—well, I can't remember who else will be there that day, but they're all highly recommended, and the festival is a great opportunity to discover more.

Interview by Jaime Cortés