Blessed rain
 |
| © Jordi Soler Quintana |
Natalia Miró do
Nascimento has grown between diverse music and languages. As Namina she presents
her debut album, "Orlando", because, as she says, "after
maturing it while touring Catalonia, it’s time to make it come true and summer
up the live repertoire with a storyline." Namina is the alter ego that turns
her passions and obsessions into music. From the other side of the mirror, the
public, is a creative flow of rhythms, melodies and intimacy. And so
"Orlando" comes to us with the same attitude found in Ovidi
Montllor’s "Perquè vull" (Because I want), with the added nuance of
love, need and diversity. Everything, therefore, wealth and finesse. She says
she makes "author Mediterranean rock or something," but forgets its
deep literary atmosphere. The album is full of their own and others characters.To
the same Orlando by Virginia Woolf, Namina added to the dance Tereza from the
Jorge Amado’s novel " Tereza
Batista: Home from the Wars", while the small and large moments of life spray
the both of them and all the other songs as fertile rain of which the land of
our soul just never have enough. With Namina’s rain, forget the umbrella and
let it thoroughly wet our hearts.
Why did you
choose music as a way of expression?
First I was going to say the topic: "In fact, the
music chose me." But it is not true. Ever since I was a child, I liked and
I've practiced many artistic disciplines. My first vocation was to be a dancer,
I'm a frustrated dancer. But I have always written, drawn, painted ...
In music I guess I found the medium more connected to
me, the most visceral. And I realized that if I tried, I could get to do
minimally well.
Did you grow up
in a musical environment?
Tropically musical. That is, at home there was no
musicians, no musicians in my family. But my mother is musical. I’ve absorbed
music my whole life, especially for the Brazilian side, but at home sounded all
kind of music.
Is that why you
chose as artistic name Namina, taking a part of your name and your two
surnames, drinking from all sources?
I do not have any grace to invent names. A friend,
musician Mozambique, baptized me this way and I liked it so much. It is short
and easy.
But it is true
that your songs have a rooted sound not only stylistic but personal, from deep
inside. In fact you’ve just told that music was for you the most visceral
medium. Is composition always an introspective exercise for you, even therapeutic?
Yes, although now "therapeutic" does not
mean the same thing it meant when I was fourteen. But it still is, although
there are issues that do not come from autobiographical experiences. Composition
is introspective and lonely. Live performance is the explosion of communion
with others. It's the perfect profession!
In what
circumstances do you feel more comfortable, solitude or communion?
In both. Balance is the key. To compose, loneliness;
to perform live, the whole band and a good audience.
Given the blues soul
your music transpires I have to ask you, how do you live sadness?
I cannot avoid to live it as a creative material.
It may sound a little stupid, but the truth is that we decide how we face life.
Everything changes. Sadness as joy, last as long as you want or what it is need
to long. Sadness, once transformed into song, is a therapeutic material to your
disposal at any time.
Speaking of
transformation, you open your album singing you feel like a "Snake Skin
shedding". A metamorphosis?
Yes, that song just talks about my relationship with
music. Often I mention that I do not need drugs because I drugged myself.
Music, books and movies are my drug, literally. But it is when I sing I cannot
avoid getting into a parallel state. It is a continuous metamorphosis. When
someone tells me that it touches him, I am the happiest person on earth.
 |
| © Jordi Soler Quintana |
And who is
Orlando or what does he represent?
It's funny, Orlando is one of the themes of most
recent album. "Orlando" by Virginia Woolf is one of the books that
more have marked me. I use to reread it once a year. I had long wanted to do a
song about the character, but I did not dare. Until I finally decided to do so.
Once done, I realized that I'm Orlando. I also believe that we are all Orlando.
Free beings above all. Genres, labels, etc. They are just words that make us
play roles in society.
But we usually
fail to escape them. Do you think that we are free beings or prisoners of
survival instinct?
We are imprisoned free beings. But it is always better
to create your own jail knowing what you need to live in the prison that the
others have imposed you.
But we usually
accommodate to the others ...
It's nice to accommodate to the others, surely one of
the most beautiful things we can do. So you have to try to be surrounded by
people to whom you are willing to get adapted.
Again communion.
Yes!
But do not you
think that our wealth is precisely the difference? Is not this what makes us improve?
Sure, if not we should not accommodate to the others.
Adapting does not mean giving everything. Others must also accommodate to you.
And that is not always possible. It's part of the game. Not everybody can like
each other and be friends, right?
No, of course. Curiously
you sing in another song "vi que o mundo era eu...tudo na verdade / sempre foi simples / como a pisada na beira do mar". It made me think of Protagoras
who said "Man is the measure of all things" ... Is it a moment of
selfishness or do you think the truth is inside oneself?
Yes, now I see it can be seen as self-centeredness!
Nothing could be further of what I thought writing this song. "Como a pisada na beira do mar" talks about the little things, the fleeting moments. I am
saying that I see the world like saying you're a part of it, something tiny and
ephemeral. And yet there are great moments, like stepping on the sand of the
beach and watch the sea erase it.
Life gets also
erased ...
Exactly.
In “Dirt” you
sing "What am I supposed to do? Nothing but pray" Do you have a
spiritual concept of life?
I really do not know. I guess so. But my spirituality
is like my music, eclectic and visceral. Nature impresses me enough to awaken my
spirituality.
Visceral and
spiritual might sound contradictory. Are you usually looking for
contradictions?
Oh, I do not seek them, they find me!
Do not you feel
comfortable with them?
Yes, I’ve adapted to the contradictions in loving
communion.
Touché. And "As
it rains' ... You have to see with your rain!
Hahahaha!
Does the water
moves you or you're more land?
The elements in general move me. But yes, the water is
a recurring theme.
Finally, could
you explain me a dream you had while you were sleeping?
As a child in a place that could be Sarrià in
Barcelona, going to an old and very beautiful building surrounded by a wild
garden. Entering in a kind of reception / store, an old lady with a bun gave me
ballet shoes. Naturally, I was sooo happy! In fact, I still want to have my
first ballet shoes.
Listen to Namina's album Orlando here
An interview by Juan Carlos Romero
Namina website namina.net
Photos Jordi Soler Quintana. © Jordi Soler Quintana
Song Orlando words and music by Namina
Video directed by Jordi Soler Quintana
Edited by Microscopi © & ℗ 2014 Microscopi
All rights reserved