On Hagen, the sophomore album from experimental group Titanic, the duo of Mexico City-based Héctor Tosta (I. la Católica) and Guatemalan cellist/vocalist Mabe Fratti take pop music and stretch it in a million different directions, like four kids each holding a corner of taffy and sprinting to different corners of the room. Everything is inches away from being incredibly accessible, but Católica and Fratti constantly refract and reimagine traditional song structure to push their compositions into truly thrilling places. Next time someone comes at you with some poptimist evangelism inspired by a top-40 artist working with some underground hotshot, play them this instead.
Both on a song-to-song and moment-to-moment basis, Católica and Fratti are exploring a smorgasbord of subgenres, hidden avenues, and underground dives. “Lágrima del sol” moves from screechy noise rock to ’80s glam without even giving proper warning (who needs it!), while “Escarbo dimensiones” takes some double-bass soloing before shifting into a bit of prog-pop that sounds like the kind of thing people on the Dune planet listen to.
To help us dive deeper into this truly one-of-a-kind LP, we had the duo walk us through each song on the album. Check out their track-by-track breakdown below.
1. “Lágrima del sol”
Héctor Tosta: The lyrics of this song talk about a specific situation. It’s about when you feel in debt with your family just for the blood, and when there are limits to draw even though everything can be forgiven. We tried to talk about this with something musically fun and catchy—kind of like a cheerleader vibe. For us, the last sentences of the songs means a lot. It says, “Si le miente a su psiquiatra, da lo mismo una lágrima del sol,” which translates to: “If he lies to his shrink it doesn’t matter, another tear from the sun.”
2. “Gotera”
HT: This song was first made for a commission that Mabe and I had to do in the Netherlands. We had to play a set composed specifically for a venue in Den Bosch. It all began with the idea of the rhythm. The lyrics talk about having the same plan and the same configuration, no matter what. It’s just a matter of waiting for the right moment and the right place.
3. “Escarbo dimensiones”
Mabe Fratti: This song also started with a beat and a simple beat. The melody came to us pretty fast. Héctor and I were confused on what direction to take the song in for after a couple of verses (which, for some reason, I felt sounded a little like Depeche Mode, which of course is a good thing for us), but we were sure we wanted a Jaco [Pastorius]/Tony Levin kind of bass. At some point, in the bridge of the song where I sing “Si quieres te devuelves y regresas cuando ya lo sepas todo,” we were inspired by a Shakira melody—you can feel it—from that song “No” with Gustavo Cerati. Héctor says he doesn’t like the funky ending. I love it. I think of Chic.
4. “Te tragaste el chicle”
HT: This is a special one for us. It’s just a simple song with a simple chord progression, but we just feel something super special about it. The lyrics are super important to us because they talk about how modernity can be overwhelming and how the internet can make you feel isolated. It was so beautiful for me to hear Mabe sing this song. She put all her heart into the session, and at that time I just felt that I had to do the same thing—that’s why I went for the corny guitar part that’s around the vocals.
MF: I love how these lyrics hit. The song and the melody Héctor made also make me think a little bit about Arthur Russell, especially the part that goes pretty low. However, the other part where I scream a very hard-pitched note, that makes me think of Celine [Dion]. I told Héctor he should make a glam line for this one. He nailed it epically.
5. “Libra”
HT: We love this one, and now that we begin to play the songs live, this one feels so good to play. I love the chord progression. There’s a chord in the song that was a miracle for me. I feel so lucky that that chord appeared, because it only makes sense in a really strange way. It was a little bit of a challenge to make it work with the melody, but we made it.
MF: When Héctor made this song I immediately fell in love with it. It’s maybe my number one from the record. It makes me think of Brazil. A Chico Buarque kinda song. An epiphany moment of this song: I remember we were in this beautiful studio in NY called Circular Ruin with Nate [Salon] and Randall [Dunn]. Randall was tweaking an effect rack on the drums (I think it was an Eventide or something) and eventually he got to this kind of gated reverb that I was like “that.” You can hear that nice effect throughout the song that just adds up to the groove.
6. “La dueña”
HT: This song was an experiment. I love going to karaoke in Mexico and of course people are always singing so many old banggers, and I always thought that it might be fun to have that kind of song in our repertory. Saying that I really tried to write the lyrics according to a broken heart from the ’60s. It just was super fun and it was super cool to put a distorted cello on it.
MF: This, for me, is like a Rocío Durcal song! But metal.
7. “Gallina degollada”
HT: I think this song was an excuse to groove. We first did this song for a movie, but the director told us that he wasn’t going to use it—but we were still excited about it. I remember not paying much attention to this song in the studio, but Nate was excited about it so we trusted his gut. I had fun recording this guitar because I just put weird stuff on the strings and I think that I found a cool sound.
MF: The song references the title of Horacio Quiroga’s eerie short story. Nate sampled Eli [Keszler]’s drums and later on created a great beat for this one. Good idea that we ended up putting it in the record.
8. “Pájaro de fuego”
HT: This was one of the last songs that we did for the album. I was thinking at that moment that it would be super cool to have a song with only a great cello line and Mabe’s voice.
MF: We were in that last phase of making the record (and this song), and I remember that Nate and [Oneohtrix Point Never] were listening to the record and Daniel [Lopatin] wrote saying that he wanted to be part of the record and we were super excited about this, and they recorded some epic synths to this song.
9. “La trampa sale”
MF: This one is so fun to sing. My favorite song to sing for sure! Héctor’s lyrics are so epic. “Don’t scream because they’ll come asking for help”!? Amazing line!
10. “Alzando el trofeo”
HT: This song was born in Austria. We were waiting for a show in Krems and we had a beautiful place to stay. I remember that we stayed for a week there and this super simple chord progression came across. There’s something special about this song, and I don’t know what it is. I also love the multiple layers that Mabe did for this song with the voice. Recording bass for this song was pretty fun also.
MF: This song makes me think of Jeanette, but I know that Hector was just obsessed with this Roches song. He got inspired in Austria and ended up creating this magical song that has the beautiful words: “He can’t decide whether he’s depressed or bored.”
