Iiisa - tanto te he querido

Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist isabel crespo pardo (they / them) announces their solo electroacoustic debut tanto te he querido (Eng: so much i’ve loved you), under new moniker, iiisa. Merging field recordings, poemsongs, and familial voices from their home in Costa Rica, they build memory portals for the kindling of transformation.

The album is a window into a continually evolving and iterative world, created with “a gloriously improvised heart” (writes Dada Strain of crespo pardo’s music). Known and celebrated for a strong track record of highly rewarding collaborations, this solo guise reveals a new facet of their artistic vision. Here, the self becomes a constellation of shifting presences.

Drawing from Latin American histories, Black American art, and queer and trans thought, iiisa prioritizes vulnerability, interconnection, and an openness to change. The resulting album tanto te he querido is largely crafted with composted fragments of past compositions and field recordings gathered by iiisa over the past decade.

“Engaging in an ongoing dialogue with archival material has taught me so much,” they write. The particularities of working with limited source material — much of which contains texture and sonic artifacts — is a challenge crespo pardo deftly embraces. Like trying to sculpt a cloud, each poemsong was recomposed dozens of times, continuing to fluctuate in performance as its essence comes into view. crespo pardo recorded and produced the album during a residency at renowned NY art & science community centre Pioneer Works, while on tour, and in the homes of several loved ones.

“I wanted to offer my voice in the way I hear it when I’m alone,” iiisa shares. “I wanted to bring people into the cave of my mind.”

The album was conceived as a cumulative experience, each of the 10 tracks unveiling a new layer of iiisa’s extensive sound world. Lead single, “aún siento la sombra” shakes in frustration against the painful conformity that, says iiisa, “keeps us powerless”. Moving between erratic percussion, clips of protests in Mexico, and of a release ritual in Costa Rica, crespo pardo’s “pliable and fearless voice” (I Care If You Listen) emerges from a bed of distortion.

Another key moment in the album, “pasa y pasará” includes moments from a conversation between them, their mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. The speakers and subjects within the album are always in flux, dissolving any sense of a singular narrative or distinct individual. Filled with recordings of iiisa playing piano in solitude, the track sits in the uncertainty of external perception.

Throughout the album, iiisa’s quiet contemplation invites the listener to sit with themes of memory, mortality, intergenerational trauma, and hope. Reaching through cyclical aches and non-linear becoming, they ask: “is it possible to heal into the past?”

As an improviser-composer, crespo is an active member of the NYC creative music scene. They lead and participate in myriad collaborations, working across sound, performance, text, and visual art with artists such as Kalia Vandever, Lester St. Louis, yuniya edi kwon, Matthew Barney, and Raven Chacon. crespo’s work has been presented by Big Ears Festival, Lincoln Center Atrium, LAMPO, and Sound & Gravity Festival, and supported by the Loghaven Artist Residency, Roulette Intermedium Residency, and the Van Lier Fellowship.