At all times, our naked eyes survey things divided in separate entities and objects. But on a micro-level we are all part of the same symphony of subatomic matter, always in flux, influencing, distorting and changing us beyond our direct sensory perceptions. It’s a ceaseless mystery Colombia-based composer Montañera – real name María Mónica Gutiérrez – seems keen to explore in her songwriting.
Take her latest single “Un Día Voy a Ser Mariposa” (translation: ‘One Day I’ll Be A Butterfly’), which conflates the emotional change after separation from someone close to the unremitting metamorphosis of nature. There’s an odd comfort in knowing that each end interlocks with a new beginning all the same. “How painful, but also how transformative – becoming a butterfly- how new branches grew in me and sprouted flowers that I give to you,” Gutiérrez says of the song. “How painful it can be to be born, nonetheless, there is a light that guides me, that awaits me, that burns me, and blinds me. It’s a song about being reborn.”
“Un Día Voy a Ser Mariposa” sounds like a storm in slow motion: oscillating synths, rumbling soundscapes and ghostly vocals that fade in and out of the background. Despite its cutting-edge tools, the song very much resonates like an ancient prayer, voices from the beyond guiding you through the here and now. The music video was shot in the Suesca mountain range near Bogotá, a sacred territory for the indigenous people of the region.
“It’s a video where the landscape itself tells stories,” Montañera explains. “The sounds of the frailejones (a millenary hairy-leafed native plant), the storms in the distance, the lagoons and the caves, guiding her quest of questions and answers. ‘there is a light that fills me’ marks the beginning of the rite of passage where she becomes a butterfly, delving in the depths of the darkness and preparing to come to the surface, as if being reborn. Again in the mountain; in the cleanliness, the nightfall, and the storm, she sits down to contemplate, in deep calm, all the memories that already rest as in a dream.”
“Un Día Voy a Ser Mariposa” is the first single from Montañera’s upcoming album A Flor de Piel, out November 17th via Western Vinyl. It finds Gutiérrez, who has moved to London, exploring her identity outside of her stomping grounds. “The album has accompanied me through inner journeys of finding myself in a new territory — of redefining myself, of remembering who I am — in a strange place.” You can preorder it here.
For now, enjoy and listen to “Un Día Voy a Ser Mariposa” below.
Follow Montañera on Instagram, Facebook and her official website.
