Ecuadorian music duo Cruzloma discusses their musical background, creative process, and influences with KGNU’s EC. They explain how growing up near Quito shaped their sound, blending traditional mestizo and Afro-Ecuadorian rhythms with electronic music and reggae. The duo emphasizes the organic evolution of their sound, rooted in their cultural heritage (Interview date: 10/9/2024)
EC: I want to welcome Cruzloma. Hi guys.
Cruzloma: Hey, how are you doing?
EC: Very good. So glad to have you in the studio. Why don’t you jump into some music and we’ll talk and hear more about you.
Cruzloma: Yeah, we can do that. The next song we’re going to play is called “Desdichas” which in English means misfortune.
EC: Very nice. Welcome Cruzloma. Thanks for being here this evening.
Cruzloma: Thank you for having us.
EC: You guys are from Quito, Ecuador. I will say, if I hear about Ecuadorian music, this wasn’t maybe the first thing that came to mind. What has inspired you in your musical journey?
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : So there are various things. I think we grew up in a very specific context. Even for Quito, it was a very specific context, as we didn’t grow up inside the metropolitan area of the city. You don’t expect that when you are thinking about a capital city of a country, even in South America or whatever.
We’re separated from the city because the disposition of the city is very interesting. It’s among the mountains. It’s located between a lot of volcanoes and a lot of mountains. And it’s divided in different valleys. So you have the main metropolitan central area that goes north and south, but towards the west and east, you will have different valleys that surround the city.
We grew up in a very specific area called Tumbaco which is actually close to an extinct volcano called the Ilaló. That happens a lot in Ecuador. You’ll be like, ah, I was born between three active volcanoes or whatever because it’s the Andean region.
Our environment was so diverse, even in terms of the things you don’t realize as you’re growing up. We were close to rural areas. Now it’s a lot more urbanized and it’s gentrified and whatever, but it wasn’t that way when we grew up there. I think we were exposed, first of all, to the music of our parents which was traditional mestizo music. We’re generally associated more with indigenous music and stuff, which is part of what was our surroundings at that time.
It’s not only the things that we were exposed to. My dad used to sing and play guitar, specifically, again, traditional mestizo music, like pasillos, or passacaglias, or albasos, which were local rhythms, but specifically for the mestizo. The mixed, racially speaking, section of the population. I grew up listening to a lot of rock and metal, and at some point I was like, nah, I cannot do this anymore.
EC: I know that feeling.
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : We met in college and Felipe had his own musical background. And then we were like, oh, let’s make a dub band. At that time we were like 17, 18 years old. That also influenced a lot the sound that we’re actually presenting today, this specific show. The rhythm we’re playing right now is a rhythm called Bomba del Chota which is from the northern part of our country, from the highlands. Specifically from the Afro-Ecuadorian community, which is different from the coastal Afro-Ecuadorian community and rhythms that we have there. So yeah, I don’t know if I actually answered the question at this point, but I talked a lot about the music and our surroundings as we were basically growing up in a very diverse area.
EC: It sounds like so many of us though. There’s what my parents played when I was growing up. Some of it was classical, but some of it was Brazilian. And I think it all goes into that blend that influences us. Obviously this is music that’s struck you and I understand you were more of a larger group and then you just came back to, let’s just do the two of us together.
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): Initially we were like a collective, with more friends. And then with Sergio, we decided to just start making music by the two of us, right?
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : Yeah. At the point where we actually started the project, it was more about, we want a sound of a generational scale. It was just five of us, but we were trying to find this sound based on our local rhythms and music. So we started studying them and trying to add them to different electronic music styles. We ended up doing something much more organic than we actually started with. But yeah, it was around three or four or five of us at a point. At some point it was so difficult to put everybody on the same page that we were like, let’s make music together and let’s synthesize this and simplify it into a musical project based on all this research and background that we were trying to broadcast to the world.
EC: Yeah. It’s fun watching you, seeing the two of you very close together. Clearly you work well together, and you’re playing guitar and yet it seems like you’re doing some things on keyboards. Just a really interesting mix. So what’s the next piece you have for us?
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : The next piece is a piece called “Candil”. I don’t know the actual translation of this word, and it’s something about fire, like kindling a fire. I don’t know. But yeah, all these songs that we’re going to present today are bomba. Based on a specific drum, and I hope you guys enjoy it.
EC: How fun. So what was that piece?
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : That piece is called “Fisherman”.
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): No wonder I like it. I’m known to like fish and fish things. I saw you have a tattoo .
Cruzloma: Oh yeah.
EC: Very nice. So what brings you to Boulder?
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): Actually, I live in Denver. I moved here four years ago. First we were living in North Park here in Colorado. Then we moved to Denver two years ago. I’ve been living here since then.
EC: Nice. How are you finding the scene here? Are people interested and receptive to the music?
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): Yeah, I really love, in general, the Colorado music scene. I feel like people are really open to new ideas. And also they are really friendly. People go to other artists’ shows. Yeah, I really like it.
EC: And it sounds like you’re from a mountainous area. So that’s gotta help a little bit.
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): Yeah, that helps a lot. I didn’t realize it, but until I moved out from Ecuador, we’re really mountain people. We live in the mountains and close to the mountains. And having that here, it’s great.
EC: Definitely. So when it comes to putting your music together, I’m curious. I’m always intrigued when you’re using synthesizers and other things, do you find the sounds within what you have? Do you have to build up the sounds that you’re looking for? Where do those tend to come from?
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : It depends. We lay out every project, like we will write it before we even make the music. It will be like, okay, so this is gonna be like this or this is gonna be like that. I think when we made our first album we were centering on making electronic dance music that is nurtured by Ecuadorian music. We released this in June through a label called ZZK and we actually have a vinyl record around here. We will show it to you.
But yeah, I think that was the point there. When Felipe moved out, we started looking for other ways of working because we were in a long distance relationship, let’s say that because it was like that. So at some point, we had so many recordings of drums and rhythms. We were like, okay, let’s lay out some of the things that we already know as musicians. I think when you’re making electronic music you get lost in machines. We’re musicians in terms of that we’re instrumentalists. We play instruments. We don’t only make electronic music.
I think we were lacking the contact of that when we were making merely electronic program music. We’re like, let’s make something that is timeless. That was the thing that we first thought. We are dub and reggae lovers. We’re really into that culture.
And we’ve been, again, nurturing our music and our sound from that language, specifically the part of mixing and the part of machines, which Felipe is doing here. I’m more playing guitar and doing nice chops and synths, but Felipe is actually working on the magic and the effects.
But yeah, we were like, let’s make something timeless. And we tried taking that first idea of making Ecuadorian music mixed with other stuff. We’re like, let’s make Ecuadorian dub and reggae with our own non-reggae rhythms, and we ended up with this very organic setup. Which is mainly recordings of musicians from back home, part of the Afro-Ecuadorian communities. And then I layed out some guitars, which is also an interpretation of the local guitar language that we have there.
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): I feel like for these songs, the main element was the percussion. We did all of this music when I was in Denver and Sergio was in Ecuador. He would record guitars, he would send them to me, and then I would add the percussion that we already recorded back in Ecuador. Then I would make all the form of the songs so it worked. And we liked it and we started making more songs like that.
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : We’ve been doing music for such a long time, around 15 years now. So we understand each other very easily. We don’t have to talk a lot. It’s this ongoing conversation where we never say anything. We’re just excited about the things that are happening. I think music in general is that way. If you don’t let these things happen to you in a very casual way, it’s difficult for things to end up being what they are right now. You have one thought at the beginning, and then it’s like, okay, it ended up this way and we love it.
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): And it’s also cool because I don’t have to think about the specific idea. I know if I send him something, something is gonna wake up in his creative mind. Something’s gonna come up. We just know each other.
EC: Do you ever look at each other and say, what are you doing there?
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : Sometimes, definitely. Probably more often than we think. But we try to put our attention towards, yeah, we’re a good duo. This has gone through so much fire that we have now become tight as iron, I think.
EC: I always love that about musical collaborations. You might have an idea, and you have another idea, and if those don’t work, they seem to find their other homes, usually.
Are you guys playing out at all? Are there places anybody can see you, or are you more, hey, you’ve got this new record you send?
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : I think we have both. We’re playing this Friday at Larimer Lounge. It’s a free show actually. And we are playing for a very long time. So we’re going to extend this thing that we have here a little bit more.
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): We’re going to do a four hour set. So first we’re going to a live set and then we’re going to do a DJ set.
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : Yeah, we make music to celebrate.
EC: Do you include Ecuadorian music in your DJ sets too?
Cruzloma: Yeah.
EC: Awesome.
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): Yeah, actually I feel like a huge part of the Ecuadorian music culture is also dance music. But from Ecuador, like Cumbia, Chicha.
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : You’ll have a DJ playing for thousands of people, but it’s not this idea of the electronic music DJ playing.
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): It’s like techno Cumbia.
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : It’s like electronic music from our homeland.
Cruzloma (Felipe Romo): Those are the best parties though. It’s always so great to play down there.
EC: Do you want to take us out with one more piece?
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : We can play something from our album maybe. This won’t be live, but I hope you guys enjoy it because we put a lot of effort into this album. It took us around five years to have it done.
EC: All right. Cruzloma is here live in the studio.
Cruzloma (Sergio Castro) : Thank you very much for having us, and we hope you enjoy the music.
EC: Thanks so much for coming in.
