In Carla Morisson’s 2015 song ‘Tierra Ajena’ (from the album, Amor Supremo), she accuses “what are you coming for, to shake my fortress?” She’s broken, desperately trying to heal. In ‘Mi Secreto’, love is ‘an addiction’ that takes its debilitating physical toll. With ‘Devuélvete’ Carla begs “return to me soon, I don’t understand anything about myself anymore, you are so vital to me, what, don’t you understand that I feel like dying?”
In the world of this Mexican protagonist, love is an insatiable need, an inner turmoil of sacrifice and desire, always on the verge on the catastrophic. As a listener, I can’t help but marvel at her bravery, to sing so gutturally about fear, hurt and loss. So, when I get her on the phone, I am bursting to ask where she got the confidence from, to be so honest and fragile.
“When I started to make music, I felt people weren’t really listening to stuff like that. I felt like contemporary pop was always painting this picture perfect kind of romance, it was just all very pink and soft; those songs weren’t really speaking truth to me. I’d have to go all the way back to the Forties, Fifties or Sixties to actually feel like somebody was telling my truth. I want to write songs for people who are scared, and show that it’s totally fine to express it, so we don’t feel so alone. So, when people come and tell me that my songs helped them out, it makes me feel like someone was there with me all the time.”
You could compare Carla Morisson’s sound - contemplative and scenic, warm with a voice full of colour - to the tender but optimistic tones of Swedish duo First Aid Kit. There is the dreaminess of The Cardigans, or the brooding timbre of Lana Del Rey, the torturous lows and dizzying heights expressed by The Cranberries. Indeed she recognises the ‘invasion’ of British music in her life. And yet, Carla is unmistakeably Latina, one of the formidable figures of a new tradition of defiantly independent Mexican female vocalists, such as Lila Downs, Natalia LaFourcarde, Ely Guerra and Julieta Venegas.
As a music fan in Europe who craves female emotional integrity, it’s a rare slice of heaven. And I wonder how difficult it is for women who express how they truly feel, without the bravado of today’s body-flaunting pop divas, to succeed in the industry.
“I’m not a fan of social media but the good thing about it is that you hear people saying directly: ‘yeah, we like this, we like that women are speaking up, that they have a right to be sexual, feminine, sexy but also computer scientists and everything else.’ There has been progress but change doesn’t happen in a day, it happens in years, I think probably our children, or the children of our children, will really live out the benefits of what’s going on right now.”
Has made it more difficult for you to breakthrough with music that is more emotive and personal?
“Actually, I think people crave music that is real. It was hard in Mexico at first; people were kind of surprised that I had tattoos but I was normal at the same time, or that I’m curvy and not super skinny. You get people who don’t like you, but at the same time a lot of people liked the real and raw things about me that others don’t like. At the end of the day, you learn that it’s just what people think, not who you are, so it becomes like a challenge and helps you figure yourself out.”
Carla’s singing is vivid; her voice wanders between wistfulness, dreaminess, loss and pain; it can be delicate but there is a subtle strength. Folky, country influences lend themselves to expressions of hurt, whilst the overall sound is open, spacious, expansive and confident; the confidence of someone who knows what they want to say.
“I wanted people to feel emotion and I always wanted to put out something that would make people think. There’s not enough music that makes you feel; ‘it changed my life, it changed my day, it made me feel better.’ I always wanted to be the type of artist that actually speaks to people, not the most famous artist or the richest, but the artist that you go to when you feel like you’re not being understood.”
Indeed, like in her 2012 album Déjenme Llorar, ‘looking for some meaning in the world, things that I could not understand, lit my soul and turned off my mind’ she is always searching for answers. Did harnessing this spirituality always come naturally?
“It was always very natural to me. We all have our different beliefs, some of us believe in the universe, some of us believe in God, at the end of the day we all have that spiritual need to be awakened, to feel comfort and to find answers. For me most important thing is to speak to the soul; spirituality is an essential part of our existence.”
Being brought up in Baja California, on the border with the United States and part of the San Diego–Tijuana area, Carla’s musical influences are wide-ranging and diverse. “I’ve always been a big fan of Morrissey,” she expressed in a smiling tone. “When I was young I used to listen to Neil Diamond because my dad would play him all the time. I’m just a big fan of good music, I don’t really care if it’s reggaeton or whatever it is, as long as they’re good songs, no matter what genre they are.” Proof of the latter came in her opening track on last year’s J Balvin album Vibras.
She confesses to being “a huge fan of Coldplay” who she says are masters of the emotional connection. I shared that I saw Coldplay around six years ago and was stunned by its ability to make each fan feel connected, to the band but also to each other. Carla agrees, and with an infectious joy and liveliness that makes me smile, suddenly becomes the fan: “when I saw Coldplay around three years ago, I had to stop myself for a moment because I felt like I was going to faint, I was so happy, I was crying like a fifteen year old girl!”
So for Carla, does music offer an human connection in a way that does not ordinarily exist?
“The other day I was in a little coffee shop in Paris and this French girl came to me and she was so excited, saying ‘oh my God, I’m a big fan!’ A lot of people say ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying but I just feel it’. It shows, we all go through the same struggles, the same things, we hurt the same and that’s all pretty universal, and to feel united in that way is beautiful.”
Perhaps it's the honesty in the music that makes it easy to detect the changes and nuances between each album. Her earlier music such as ‘Disfruto’ is dreamy and fragile. On her 2015 ‘Amor Supremo’ album, the language and tone is formidable; the extremities of emotional strife are acute. Her emotional state fluctuates between total bleakness to brilliantly luminous - the album portrays a battle between light and dark, between the fear and pain and the prospect of happiness.
In 2018 she released ‘Amor Supremo Desnudo’ (naked), with stripped back acoustic versions of the original songs; ‘Un Beso’ now has a delicate resonance, whilst the vast ‘Te Regalo’ conveys a deeper truth and purity, both vulnerable and more empowering. What was behind the choice of making ‘desnudo’?
“When I thought about the name ‘desnudo’, I was a little scared, I don’t want people imagining a naked body” Carla explains, “but I said ‘I’ll feel fine because this is the reality, I’m an adult, I’m talking just about my music,’ I wanted to do that naked version of the album because it was telling a whole different story.”
The second version sounds even more vulnerable and I wonder whether it has become easier to voice these emotions with age.
“I feel like I’ve gotten better at expressing myself. I definitely perceive life differently because I’m older. I’ve understood some pieces of life and I don’t get mad as often, I don’t get as resentful. What I’m trying to do now is relive emotions and approach them in a better way. Maybe it’s because I’ve turned 32, if it’s because career or fame has affected me, it’s really not important. I just wanna be a happy person, a good human being.”
Bubbly, buoyant and talkative, Carla’s passion and enthusiasm shines through. Indeed for all the fagility and angst in her songs, last year she was included in Forbes Mexico’s list of ‘The 100 Most Powerful Women in Mexico.’ Laughter mirrored between us, I asked, “so the tone might change again in your music, it might go even more light and dreamy?”
“I don’t know, I’m trying to figure it out,” Carla said with a laugh, “I definitely have stuff to sing about but at the same time, I don’t have much to rant about!”
Carla Morisson will be making her London debut on Wednesday in Liverpool (May 1), Bristol (May 3) and London (May 5) Tickets here
