Ears Wide Open: San Cha

Daiana Feuer on June 7th, 2018

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“This record is very much about me figuring out what the devil really is,” says San Cha of her debut EP, “Capricho Del Diablo,” coming out July 13 on Outside Insight. The road to the record began in 2014, when she was living in the Bay Area and thriving in its underground music scene, promoting parties and performing in the radically fun band Daddie$ Pla$tik. A fall-out with a close friend, her manager, changed everything. She says he claimed ownership not only of her music but of her soul, her “whole being,” and used his power to tarnish her reputation and ostracize her from the community. With no one to turn to, San Cha sought refuge at her Tia Luz’ ranch in Jalostotitlán, Jalisco, Mexico. As she tried to put her life back together, her Tia encouraged San Cha to take comfort in traditional Mexican music. Learning mariachi, bolero and ranchera songs, San Cha found the framework that could translate the emotion and pain she felt, and began writing songs for “Capricho Del Diablo,” about her experience in the Bay and “The Devil” she knew.

In 2015, San Cha made her way to Los Angeles and found a new community that embraced her fiery spirit. She formed a band, San Cha Y Las Sirenas, and eventually got around to putting together an EP, where she sings in both English and Spanish. To capture a raw performance, they recorded the tracks live in one take, all together in the room. “The record is for people that I actually love and want to model most of my personal relationships after,” she says. “It’s been a real rebirth and full Saturn’s Return experience to go from being inspired, creating the music by myself, to performing it with friends I really wanted to collaborate with and recording it with some of my fave creative people at that time in L.A.”

||| Stream: “Capricho Del Diablo”