Now settled in the Barcelona neighborhood of El Born for over a year, Argentinian indie wunderkind Luca Bocci looks at his second album as a trip through ordinary and extraordinary events in his life. “There is a lot of me in the lyrics,” he tells Apple Music, “but even though they come from personal experience, they are written from a place of empathy and connection with anyone that might listen to them.” The first thing that leaps out about No Pierdas la Simpleza is a clean, classic, in-the-studio sound. It’s a lush, organic tapestry far removed from debut album Ahora’s homemade indie pop and even the vitriolic guitars of Alicia, the band he fronted before going solo. “Recording and mixing a whole album in a professional studio is not easy for an independent artist,” he says. “It was more of a dream that I wanted to fulfill than a need, because the essence is in the songs. I’m pretty skeptical when it comes to professional sound.” The end result is an album that turns Luca’s fascinating little universe into a panoramic experience, full of details that reward repeated listening. Here, in an interview translated from Spanish, he guides us through it all, one song a time.
Salva Tu Amor
“I wrote it in 2018, when I first had the idea for the album. It was one of the songs that helped me shape the album, and it also set the sound I was looking for, something a little bit more rock, or more classic, but mixed with a touch of psychedelia and some extra color. The lyrics are sad for the most part. But then the line ‘Si el amor no te salva, salva tu amor’ [‘If love won’t save you, save your love’] is pretty hopeful. And then I tried to give the music a lot of light with the acoustic guitars, the tambourines, and a really loud guitar solo. To me it sounds like a pop song from the ’90s, or maybe the late ’80s.”
Aprendiendo
“This is more of a rock song, especially compared with my last album, which was more pop and didn’t have that many guitars or distortion. I wanted to make it rocking with a touch of pop sensitivity in the chorus. It’s ‘sensitive rock,’ to call it something.”
Viaje a Mí
“Here comes the first turning point in the album, where I go for a more Latin sound, something folkier, with bits of murga, candombe, and Uruguayan Rioplatense music. There are rock instruments, guitars, Rhodes, electric bass and drums, but the rhythm pattern comes from candombe. I wanted the song to feel very cinematic, especially in the keyboard and guitar melody lines. It reminds me of watching movies when I was a kid.”
Poder
“This is a contrast coming from the first three songs. The vocals are Auto-Tuned, there’s an 808, and I go for a more current sound. I tried to incorporate a lot of music that I had been listening to in the last few years and had never surfaced in any other songs.”
Muro
“‘Muro’ slows things down a little bit. There are no drums, just a little percussion here and there. The harmonies and the pianos have some salsa in them, but the chords and the way I sing are very typical of Argentinian rock, very referential. Anyone from Argentina will find something familiar. I like the lyrics a lot because they deal with time as delusion. There is a line that goes, ‘Soy un muerto del futuro atrapado en el presente’ [‘I’m a dead man from the future trapped in the present’], as if time didn’t really exist and we were all trapped in some kind of delusion.”
Acuario
“This is a special one. I hadn’t imagined any particular production for it, and I just found the instruments as I was recording them. I can’t say it was inspired by anything specific. It’s a pretty classic song, kind of rocking, I guess, but there is a mystical element to it and then a jazzier part with the Rhodes. It’s hard to pin down.”
Quise
“As with ‘Poder,’ this is a song where I wanted to try something a little different. I experimented with the vocals, with the pitch, with things I had noticed listening to artists like Frank Ocean. It starts out very serious and solemn, and somehow I managed to turn it into something more provocative with a hip-hop part, which is something I had never dared to explore before.”
Cruzaría el Mar
“This is just a pretty song, with a melody that’s sad but very kind at the same time. There is a Spanish guitar, or criolla as they say in Argentina, with a really gentle sound, and then in the break before the chorus a very distorted electric guitar comes in. The combination of those two sounds very fresh to me. It’s very influenced by Argentinian rock from the ’70s and ’80s.”
Pibe
“A very autobiographical song. It’s romanticized, because my life is not really like that and I want to charm the audience, but it is about someone that just arrived to a big city—a kid—and he can’t find anyone. It’s something that has happened to a lot of us when we move to the city and we don’t connect with anything, we feel lost. It’s not about any particular city, it could be anywhere that’s not home. To me it was Buenos Aires, because I’m from Mendoza, in the interior. It’s an apocalyptic song about the end of the world and how the character would like to watch it all come down sitting on a bench in one of the city squares from his childhood. It’s one of the heaviest lyrics on the album, maybe the one that says the most about who I really am.”
Casa Ocho
“With ‘Casa Ocho’ I wanted to step out of the indie mold, because sometimes they put you in genres that don’t really define you. It’s quite autobiographical too, and the story fits with the one in ‘Pibe.’ I sing about the stuff that happens to people my age: the nightlife, the drugs, the anxiety.”
Amor Ferrari
“This is kind of the hit and the only song I wrote in Spain; the rest I brought with me from Argentina. It’s a sincere love song. I wanted a very pop song but with distinctive touches and a Spanish guitar that gives it a different sound. That’s a really important instrument in what I’m working on now.”