By Andrea Coloma
Fiorella16's Thanatology for Young Ladies (Tanatología Para Señoritas) is the culmination of a decade of work from the enigmatic solo project of Peruvian musician José María Málaga Chuquitaype. Thanatology for Young Ladies was initially originated as a trilogy of EPs, which started in 2014. This long labor of noise, completed in 2023, resulted in a vinyl release through the Canadian label We, Here and Now!, representing a debut in this format.
Thanatology for Young Ladies is an intensely contemplative album born from reflections on death and absence. These themes are threaded throughout the record, not only in the minimal lyrical component but also in the fabric of the sound itself. The sensation of loss and longing, affixed with mirroring sounds of shoegaze, drone, and noise, forms a melancholic haze throughout the album. The opening track, "Expandiéndose al vacío" is an excellent example of this sentiment.
However, the drone sounds are quite heavily present; perhaps they even overcast the bright, shimmering shoegaze of the 90s. This shimmer is toned with a sense of decay, and the ethereal is tied with the spectral, giving the album a daybreak towards the end. The track "Y todo para no encontrarte" is the light that breaks the pattern, offering the album a blissful and nostalgic lightness, which gives a unique and memorable touch to the album. The noise isn't abrasive but rather a subtle undercurrent. It paints a sense of unease that lurks beneath the surface. The drone, meanwhile, creates a sense of vast emptiness, generating a feeling of being adrift. Then, the vocals (buried deep in the blend) are often treated and layered lightly, building a sense of disembodiment and detachment. They may emerge as haunting cries, reflecting the album's texture. This unique concoction of shoegaze, noise, drone, and enveloping vocals creates a captivating, beautiful, unsettling soundscape that profoundly echoes the album's central themes of death and absence. It is a drive to the unknown.
Fiorella16 pulls inspiration from artists like Lovesliescrushing (Scott Cortez), with whom he collaborated on the 2020 split "Extrañas Letanías." In this abstract split Fiorella16 features heavier renditions of "Gloomy Sunday" and "Canción de cunas para Abortos," which are later interpreted in drone-based versions for Thanatology for Young Ladies creating an unearthly ambiance that runs through the record.
Thanatology for Young Ladies differentiates from his harsh-noise releases, including Entra., Entras EP (2003), Puto! (2011), and INERTRICE EP (2022). I personally find Tales in Deep Noise Saturation (2020) to have a particularly strong avant-garde sensibility that I also really enjoyed.
Fiorella16 has extensively toured Latin and Central America—visiting cities in Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. The release of Thanatology for Young Ladies marks the beginning of this global push, with planned collaborations with labels and musicians across Canada, the United States, and Europe.
You can listen to the full album here!
Interview with José María Málaga
By Andrea Coloma
*This interview was initially conducted in Spanish and has been translated for this article.
AC: I am really drawn to Sylvia Soni Que's album cover. The visuals represent the textures in the album so well. How does this visual element connect to the music, and how did it shape Thanatology for Young Ladies?
JM: The art of Sylvia Soni Que influenced a lot and was very important during the creation process of this album. I started recording it in the first half of 2014, when I was still living in CDMX (Mexico) and during those months I was having thoughts about what I would like the album cover to be, since I already had the name in my head and the first ideas would extended to how it should look in physical format. It was at the beginning of 2016 that I came across Sylvia's work and among her works I found one that perfectly portrays the spirit of the album. From then on, the next five years or so, my work did not move away from this image, which is apparently a woman, apparently a spirit, or apparently the corner between two walls.
AC: How do you balance the often-conflicting elements of "dreamy" and "harsh noise" within your music? It's something I noticed you balance very well. Is it a conscious effort to create tension between these elements, or does it happen more organically?
JM: It is not an effort at all and I am not looking to generate tension between the two. On the contrary, I feel it as a complementary and necessary relationship on both sides to be able to place myself in a state of consciousness where my melancholia and my full happiness harm each other, heal and reinvent each other.
AC: Beyond Lovesliescrushing, are there any other artists, musical or otherwise (visual artists, filmmakers, writers), who significantly influenced the creation of Thanatology for Young Ladies?
JM: In addition to the visual work of Sylvia Soni Que, which has affected my imagination around the album, I do not directly recognize the influence of another artist's work. What happened with Lovesliescrushing is that I already finished the first chapter of the album in 2018, and two years later it was part of a split with Lovesliescrushing and the split also featured art by Sylvia. Scott Cortez is a very important sonic influence for me, not only with Fiorella16 but for all my musical work; but for the compendium of “Thanatology for young ladies” the affectation came from the aging and death of my maternal grandparents, the songs and stories that I was looking for accommodate these losses.
AC: Fiorella16's 20-year milestone coincided with the release of this album. How does this anniversary influence your perspective, and what do you envision for its future beyond the planned collaborations and tours?
JM: Yes, this vinyl just managed to come out a month after the project turned 20 years old. It was a coincidence but it was also very pleasant and it was all due to Shane, director of We Here & Now Records, believing and putting all his effort into it. I am infinitely grateful to him. The project began with home recordings during Halloween night in 2003 and by October 31, 2023 I was doing the first of 16 dates of a tour between Peru and Chile. I think that throughout these two decades the project has forged its own personality in terms of its sound on recordings and live, and despite this, our curiosity has not diminished. I don't like to accept my destiny, so when thinking about the future, I think of more distant places to play and not more prestigious spaces to be located. I still look for the intention of experimentation and new images or thoughts that translate into sound.
AC: After extensively touring South and Central America, where are you most excited to play next? Do you foresee plans to tour in the US?
JM: Yes, there are many people between the United States and Canada that I would like to meet and hear in person. I'm excited to get to play in a city I don't know, so I think there's still a lot, a lot out there.
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