Out Today on streaming platforms: Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly's MESTIZX
IARC0079
Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti
& Frank Rosaly
MESTIZX
OUT NOW
on all streaming platforms
Today, Bolivian-born singer and multi-medium performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and renowned Chicago expat jazz drummer Frank Rosaly release MESTIZX in full on all streaming platforms (following the May 3rd release date of the album on vinyl LP, CD, and digital download) via International Anthem / Nonesuch. Their debut full-length album as co-composers, arrangers and musicians, MESTIZX has received widespread praise for its powerful and uncompromising vision.
"Sonic wonders colliding in really great ways" —NPR Music
"Infectiously kinetic" —The guardian
"A fierce ritual protest." —Bandcamp Daily
"Unlike any other album...charts a direction and unfettered hope for the future, holism, and acceptance." —AllMusic
“An intricate, complex, and thoroughly gorgeous set of songs that weaves between folk, jazz, cumbia, bomba, art-rock and other sounds effortlessly and stunningly." —Treble
"A mosaic of sound that challenges, delights, and inspires...a pivotal debut." —Glide
"An eclectic, extravagant mix of histories, moods, manifestos and prophecies." —Spectrum Culture
"Futuristic...rumbles with avant jazz, art punk, Chicago post-rock, bomba, plena, cumbia, Andean, minimal, electronica, and folk." —WNYC New Sounds
"Unquestionably cosmic, but also grounded in the real lives and spaces of artists who refuse to be broken into cultural shards." —PopMatters
"Equally catchy and mind-expanding." —Inbox Infinity
"A truly astounding album." —Molars
"A musical reconciliation of identity that strikes out at colonialism, this debut release works in earworm melodies and rhythmic patterns that take in cumbia and Latin styles as readily as they do jazz and pop." —The Vinyl Factory
"An intriguing, moving and dreamily trippy debut album." —Monolith Cocktail
<<< MESTIZX On Tour >>>
Ferragutti & Rosaly hit the road with MESTIZX this week. The live ensemble includes Matthew Lux (Isotope 217, Iron & Wine, Exploding Star Orchestra) on bass, Ben LaMar Gay (Theaster Gates’ Black Monks of Mississippi, Joshua Abrams Natural Information Society) on cornet, vocals, and other instruments, Marta Warelis (Dave Douglas, Hupata!) on keyboards, vocals, and percussion, and Ben Boye (Ty Segall, Bonnie Prince Billy) on keyboards. With Ferragutti on vocals, keyboards, and other instruments, and Rosaly on drums, percussion, and other instruments. World premiere Wednesday May 29 in Brussels!
MAY 29th - ANCIENNE BELGIQUE - BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - tickets
(w/ Ruth Goller & Bex Burch)
MAY 30th - DE DOELEN - ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - tickets
MAY 31st - PARADISO - AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - tickets
(with Ruth Goller and Bex Burch, presented by Space Is The Place)
JUNE 1st - MOLK FACTORY - AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - tickets
(CALL Festival)
JUNE 3rd - KAMPNAGEL - HAMBURG, GERMANY - tickets
(presented by Uberjazz)
JUNE 4th - 90mil - BERLIN, GERMANY - hard tickets avail. at Soul Trade Records & HHV
(ZWEI ABENDE presented by International Anthem x Archipel x JAW Family)
JUNE 6th - STADTGARTEN - COLOGNE, GERMANY - tickets
JUNE 7th - CHURCH OF SOUND - LONDON, ENGLAND
(with Ruth Goller)
JUNE 8th - PABFEST - ILE DE BATZ, FRANCE
...about...
Ferragutti & Rosaly
Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti is an Amsterdam-based mutli-medium artist who has worked as a performer, theatre maker, vocalist, visual artist, musician and teacher. Raised in Bolivia within Bolivian and Brazilian families, Ferragutti describes their work as “deeply interwoven in post-colonial justice, the paradox and beauty between grief and celebration, Andean Cosmology as a source of reclamation, resistance and resilience. Embodiment embedded in sonic fabrics while speculating myths through word oracles. I am a neo-mestiza, a spiritual activist, a femme defender and a Moon lover.” Her notable musical collaborators include: Alabaster DePlume, jaimie branch, Ab Baars, Wilbert de Joode, Eric Boeren, Mary Oliver, Paul Koek, and The Paper Ensemble. Along with her partner Frank Rosaly, Ferragutti founded the DIY arts/music space MOLK FACTORY in Amsterdam in 2017. Learn more about Ferragutti here.
Frank Rosaly is a Puerto Rican drummer, composer, and sound designer with several decades of touring, performing, recording, and creating to his name. Born and raised in Arizona, Rosaly was known for his fifteen years of creative work on the Chicago jazz and improvised music scene, before moving to his current residence in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 2016. He has been featured on over 150 recordings, and is in constant collaboration. Artists he has worked with include: Fennesz, Joan of Arc, Jeff Parker, Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society, Colin Stetson, Rob Mazurek, Ryley Walker, jaimie branch, and many others. Since 2005 Rosaly has self-released recordings under the MOLK label, and in 2017 co-founded the DIY arts/music space MOLK FACTORY with his partner Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti in Amsterdam. Learn more about Rosaly here.
...about...
MESTIZX
Partners in both marriage and art, the Amsterdam-based Ferragutti and Rosaly dove into the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create a deeply personal meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest. They chose the title MESTIZX – a non-gendered version of the sometimes slurred Spanish colonial word for a “mixed person” - as a means of both challenging and embracing the liminality of their identities and artistic practices.
Rosaly says: “I grew up quite Puerto Rican in my home, but was taught to mask it outside my home. I wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish, so the drums eventually became my language, secretly tying together my own feeling of connection to mi tierra. This record is the first time I actively give voice to the nuance within myself, allowing me to take ownership of this in-between, which is what this album communicates for me… There is this unusual place that exists between these two cultures, of which I am both. There is a complex story in that sliver of in-betweenness, worthy of giving voice to all of us that live in-between.”
Ferragutti adds: “My personal understanding is one that stems from being placed in between lineages that carry the colonizer and colonized, the oppressor and oppressed, the demon and the angel… thus by definition is tied to post-colonial social constructs which we as Bolivians have to step in, like a 500 year novel that goes on and on… We have access to many memories and traditions, but not really, because we don’t fully belong to any of those… This makes us feel we're in a constant state of being the “visitors” and “outsiders.” On one hand, we are never truly part of one lineage. On the other hand, it makes us a travelers of worlds, storytellers in between multiple languages, cultures, and worldviews. We chose MESTIZX for this work as an act of recognizing the mixed state of being as a difficult and yet powerful one.”
Behind the scenes at IARC HQ, going deeper
MESTIZX was produced and recorded primarily at International Anthem Studios in Chicago, where Ferragutti and Rosaly were joined by a community of musicians and beloved friends including Matt Lux, Avreeayl Ra, Ben LaMar Gay, Daniel Villarreal, Bill MacKay, Rob Frye, and Mikel Patrick Avery, with adsitional contributions from Chris Doyle, Guilherme Granado, Viktor Le Givens and Fredy Velásquez.
For further background on the album, in spirit and process, we've uploaded a set of photos (all taken by IARC's own Alejandro Ayala) from the MESTIZX sessions to a special page on our site. The page also includes English/Spanish/Portuguese translations of the lyrics for each song, and Ibelisse & Frank's liner notes for the album.
*Deluxe Vinyl Package*
RED MOON COLOR VINYL
MESTIZX in vinyl form is 140 gram disc (pressed at Pallas in Germany with lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST) inside a heavyweight gatefold jacket, with a large insert poster, IARC obi strip and poly-lined dome pattern inner sleeve.
We also have a limited edition color vinyl option for the first pressing only – and 444 copies of Red Moon color vinyl are available on our Bandcamp page.
The album is also available on classic black vinyl (same specs as above) and on compact disc in a deluxe 4-panel digipack with insert booklet.
International Anthem x Nonesuch Records - North & South American distribution
MESTIZX is marketed & distributed in North & South America via our partnership with Nonesuch Records.
As Nonesuch is part of the Warner Music Group, MESTIZX will be physically distributed in North & South America by WMX. Stores, retailers, folks interested in wholesale purchases: please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about where/how to stock these releases.
Distribution via !K7 for Europe, UK, Australia, Japan, and ROW
This album will be distributed by our good friends at !K7 and their various territory partners in Europe, UK, Australia, Japan, and everywhere else in the world outside of North & South America.
If you are a retailer or store with questions about wholesale or are just looking to get some of our records... we'd like to make things as easy for you as possible, please do not hesitate to reach out!!!
