Mabe Fratti & Concepción Huerta - Estática

A collaborative EP from acclaimed experimental cellist and composer Mabe Fratti and multidisciplinary experimental artist and musician Concepción Huerta. Estática is a four track EP which effortlessly transposes between light and dark, electronic and biotic sounds. Estática combines their deeply experimental and progressive practices.

Mabe and Huerta’s collaborations date back to when they met at the experimental music festival Umbral soon after Fratti moved to Mexico City. The pair instantly became friends through their common interests and shared love of experimentation. Fratti and Huerta had been operating amongst the Mexico city improvisation scene for years and often collaborated with each other, playing around with progressive sounds, pedals and effects.

During the pandemic they started to create together, expressing the overwhelming sensations that the news of the world resonated in their minds and bodies, and how small it made them feel. Although these things were going on in reality, things still felt static. Estática exacerbates this notion with the lyrics referring to the feeling of being overwhelmed and confused.

Fratti’s haunting cello swoops in and out of the sea of reverb, distortion and drone, mostly leading, sometimes following. The ethereal, earthy and honest vocals weave themselves beautifully through the soundscape, climbing with the heat and rising intensity and opposing melancholy, which shifts with each track.

The EP is carefully crafted, featuring Fratti and Huerta’s personal, DIY instrumentation such as Mabe’s pedal board that she had designed herself over the years, which contributes to her unique sound. It includes reverb pedal RAT Proco Big Box Rat V1, a Moogerfooger Ring Modulator, SPACE Eventide Reverb, OC3 Octaver, DL4 Line6, and finally, an Acetone FuzzMaster FM2. Huerta similarly has a chain of pedals and effects unique to her personal sound, including her Tascam Portastudio, Slim phatty moog synth, multiple varying tape players, her custom made fuzz pedal, a Roland SP 404 and, like Fratti, a Moogerfooger ring modulator.