Art can come out of the ugliest places. For PUTOCHINOMARICÓN, their intricate and complex web of songs and stories was born out of rage, isolation, and discrimination. 

Set in an embellished, colourful soundscape of electronic and house music, the Taiwanese artist translates all the battles and pains of growing up in a society that never quite accepted you into an eclectic and expressive symphony. 

"Rage came first and music came second. Growing up in Spain being a Taiwanese immigrant meant growing up in a mirror maze and not being able to see yourself reflected," the multi-creative tells Bandwagon. 

"My yearning to see myself reflected to talk about my vital experiences and the social, and structural institutional racism that I have experienced led me to create this project. To escape from the ‘Tamagotchi’ screen and reappropriate my autonomy and control over how I’m represented"

Most recently, the 'Ojalá' act released their latest album, JÁJÁ ÉQÚÍSDÉ (Distopía Aburrida) which talks about experiencing relief after only knowing resistance for so long. 

Bandwagon caught up with PUTOCHINOMARICÓN to about their musical beginnings, the creative process and story behind their newest record, and what lies ahead. 

Hi Chenta, how’s life been treating you lately?

Hey! I’m fine, thank you for asking! I think I am in a similar place as many people are where I am appreciating rest and trying to learn that my work, no matter how much passion I feel for it, doesn’t justify the ‘self-precariousness’ that many of us go through. I’m deconstructing the ‘Renacentista De Tutorial’ within me (the renaissance artist that sharpens their abilities by watching tutorials on YouTube).

Could you share with us more about your persona as PUTOCHINOMARICÓN? How do they differ or relate to who you are outside of music?

PUTOCHINOMARICÓN became my nom de guerre, it’s an insult I grew up listening to and as a way of replying back, I decided to reappropriate these insults and redefine its significance by creating a caricatured extension of my identity where I’d ‘strike back’ using pop as a tool of resistance but from an irreverent, subversive lens.

PUTOCHINOMARICÓN is just a hyper summarized persona of who I am. We are the same person we share the same profile picture, 'Tu Foto de Perfil'.

For anyone who has yet to come across you, how would you describe the music that you make?

Music you’d hear in the parking lot of Mercadona (a Spanish convenience store) or in the elevator of any NH hotel in the year 3000. It’s a dump of virtual garbage where all the outdated memes go or an ‘AliExpréss’ version of Hatsune Miku. 

Your music tackles a lot of fascinating themes like virtual emotions, consumer culture, and modern, digital relationships. What kind of impact do you hope to have with your music and stories?

Thank you. for this album, I wanted to sacrifice technique and ‘legibility’ to give space to ‘terra-expression’. The vocals are extremely processed and distorted, there are vast contrasts between pianos and fortes. The songs are deliberately sonically incoherent but conceptually coherent, and glitch is used in a way to find expression in pop music, sacrificing aesthetics to give way to expression and concept.

I didn’t want to make a canonically beautiful album. I wanted to express emotion through ugliness and show the complexities of POC diasporic bodies in Spain away from the white gaze and their ‘implicit demand’ towards POC artists of constantly instrumentalising our sufferings and traumas to create pedagogy to teach them.

I wanted to put myself and my communities in the centre of the narrative and project. It would be an honour if non-hegemonic people listened to this album and this album inspired them to rejoice in their complete selves, not have to over-explain themselves or simplify themselves and constantly have to strive for excellence in order to be accepted. 

Congratulations on the release of JÁJÁ ÉQÚÍSDÉ (Distopía Aburrida), walk us through the vision you had for the album.

Apart from Legacy Russell and Chi Ta-Wei, the Taiwanese LGBT+ scene has been present during the production of this record. Feeling burnt out and in a moment of existential crisis, I went back to Taiwan and stayed there for two years.

I’ve never gone back to Taiwan for such a long period of time, and during these two years, I learnt what it meant to live without the pressure of being racialised as a POC, of understanding how it felt to have a body after decades of growing used to living under pressure and resistance, of producing and writing music from a standpoint where my identities can coexist and there is no need to fragmentize yourself.

Sonia Calico, Byron, and Xiaohua, the co-owners of Queer Trash events—thank you for inspiring me with this album. Subculture Party has also been a very important space during the production of this record. During the pandemic, Gunnar and Tyler created online parties that were the shelter for many LGBT+ people, and I owe them so much for creating a space of resistance during the pandemic where we virtually and collectively shared our complexities during difficult times and unleash the ‘Chique De Internet’ inside of us

As for the visual part, this project wouldn’t have been possible without my director Dani Cuenca, my stylists Conchi Mirror and Zazi White, the ‘tutorial renaissance artist’ Venida Devenida and so many friends that have been supporting me during these one and a half years.

Where do you hope to see yourself and your music in five years?

I would love to have more autonomy and more freedom to experiment even more with my limits as an artist and create community during this process.

What are some goals you have for yourself and your music?

To be able to experiment to find an individual musical language of my own and to understand myself better during the process.

Outside of music, what do you enjoy doing?

I was a writer and had a column in El País and published a book in 2019 but had to stop because of my mental health, but I’d love to retake writing soon.

Share with us some plans you have for the rest of the year.

My next step is to write a musical or a soundtrack to a TV show or a film. One of the things I miss the most being a self-produced artist is human contact and I’d like to work in a team for a period of time.

Listen to PUTOCHINOMARICÓN's JÁJÁ ÉQÚÍSDÉ (Distopía Aburrida) here.