On July 9, Majorcan band Antònia Font returns to the Valencian stage to present their first album in over a decade, Un minut stroboscòpica, and their musical reunion with lifelong fans and a new generation of people climbing one of the most exciting cars in history. our pop music.
The return of Antònia Font has been regarded by fans as the second coming of Jesus Christ, meaning they will have done something just before the resurrection. What?
Well I don’t know, really. We started making music because we loved music, because we thought we had something to say and could say it in our own way. That has never changed for us and has always gone well for us that way. It is something we cannot control that our message reaches people from now on and they want to listen to us. There is so much that influences this kind of thing… We were only interested in presenting ourselves, speaking and singing honestly.
But in this decade’s absence, Antònia Font was created as a kind of legend even in generations that have never experienced them.
Yes, this is intriguing. One of the things we did not expect. For the first two or three years after we stopped playing, we thought people would miss us and forget about us. And not only that, but a new generation of kids from our followers joined, I think many of them because their parents played our records for them when they were little and others discovered them on their own.
Did they come back for them?
That wasn’t the main reason, but it helped.
And what was the real reason?
The desire to do something and play live, despite the physical and mental fatigue of being a band on an island and rehearsing on weekends. This wears a lot. When we left the group, we were very good with the audience and the concerts, but we felt that something had to change, we lacked the desire to deal with another album.
The retreat came after Vosté és aqui, which was a highly experimental album and less successful than its predecessors. Have you been disappointed?
No disappointments, but we feel that that album was not well understood. Be careful, we know this is a difficult album, requires more work on the part of the listener, and not many people want to make it. We understand perfectly. But we always saw it as one of our good albums and people who had the patience to listen to it started to understand more. Back then we wanted to find the boundaries of Antònia Font. Now, instead, we wanted to go back to the core and reconnect from where we left off.
In fact, Un minut stroboscòpica, the album’s opening song, couldn’t be more Antònia Font.
Completely. We thought this was the song people were expecting from us. A lot of people told us they were afraid we were going to do another weird recording or something. But no, one hundred percent Antònia Font, a little evolved, a little more mature… Don’t believe it, it’s not easy to go back to the beginning because as the years pass you lose a little of your perspective. But I think we succeeded.
The songs again talk about the oceans, colors, lights, mechanisms of Paris. Are you unable or unable to give up your world?
We don’t want it because it’s our life and because Antònia Font is. And you can experience a lot in it. As I’ve said before, it’s about giving a universal importance to all kinds of everyday and super local things and bringing all that is universal into our Mediterranean and Majorcan environment.
Are you aware of the importance of Antònia Font when many Valencians decide to make pop songs in their mother tongue?
Maybe not that much, but we realize that we’ve opened up a way to do things with complete freedom. Back then, it seemed like you weren’t going anywhere if you strayed from standards like singing in Spanish or English. We left for spontaneity and honesty because we knew that was the best way to convey something, and we knew it would cost us dearly if we did it in Spanish. It was a matter of normalcy. And by singing in a dialect that most people don’t speak, we were sure our message wouldn’t get any less. On the contrary: I think people perceive that what we are doing is real and honest, precisely because we use this dialect. And this is what many groups have understood of Antònia Font: the freedom to do things without outside pressure or having a predefined style, and not be afraid to present yourself as you are anywhere in the world.