– We are greeted by birds on your album. What role do the field recordings you made in Colombia play in this album?

– Thank you for your interest in my latest album Soñador and the curiosity about the birds aswell.

The birds play a huge role in this creative process and have always been with my music. I have grown a deeper connection to the birds in Colombia, especially the ones in this department of Antioquia where many of these field recordings happened. While recording these songs I lived near a small town about 3 hours from Medellin called San Rafael and here the birds are amazing!.. It’s almost like an Amazon Rainforest. not far from the same environment and it’s definitely a Jungle. There are about 70 rivers in this area, all beautiful crystal clear waters surrounded by stunning nature. Some of the birds you will hear throughout the album are the Carriqui which is a “Green Jay” and The Oropendola and in Colombia they call the Oropendola “Mochileros” because they build their nests to look like little handbags. These birds make such incredible sounds like nothing else in the world, such a gift to be able to record them.

So much of my music has bird sounds I can almost recall all of the birds I’ve captured, sort of creating a map of the places I’ve been. I also love to capture birds from the North where I was born and may mix the two bird sounds sometimes in a song so you can get the best of both worlds. Also birds are very powerful to me they have this spirit world connection I feel birds have come to me in my life at very profound moments and I feel they are here when we transition from this plane to the next after death some of them also carry spirits of our family members who lived very long ago and even close family that has passed. Seeing this only from experience.

I mean think about the crows for a moment when they are together the Native Americans call them a Nation and when a member of the Crow Nation dies they even carry out funerals for them. I think that’s pretty amazing the ability to suffer with sadness that way. Birds I feel carry a deepness and are deeply caring, understanding creatures. They have these insights that us humans can’t really touch.

– What effect are you aiming for when composing the tracks? Do you want to capture the sensations you experience in the forest?

– Yes, for sure I wanted to express how the beauty of nature influenced my feelings, but sometimes songs just come to me spontaneously, almost like a channel for something beyond my understanding. Throughout the creation of this album, I was writing these songs to help me navigate through a loss and to confront old memories that were surfacing more vividly during that time. It was a way of processing those memories in a completely new light. I found myself recalling past experiences in ways I hadn’t before, reflecting on how they shaped me as a person and impacted my life. It felt like I was using these songs to heal old wounds and let them go, freeing myself from them.

– You also mention a spiritual dimension, akin to shamanism. How does this manifest itself in your music?

– As I briefly mentioned in the first question regarding the birds, I have cultivated a spiritual connection with the animals and nature of Colombia. Much of this journey began with my experiences in Shamanism and the use of plant medicines. These encounters have awakened my soul, allowing me to engage with nature on a profound level, while also enhancing my creativity and music. I was profoundly impacted by the visions and sounds of this ecosystem during plant medicine ceremonies. My first connection with a Shaman happened when I returned to Colombia in 2015, and since then, I have continued to have these experiences, which have contributed to my creative and healing journey. Music has always served as a medium for expressing the inexpressible and as a way of processing past grief or the hardships I face during the creative process. It provides me with a space to explore that dimension and the alternate realm I have encountered when connecting with Mother Earth on different energetic levels.

– When did you move to Colombia? Why did you do so? And do you plan to stay there?

– I first visited Colombia back in 2014 on a backpacking trip with two of my closest friends. We began the trip in Colombia, then made our way down to Ecuador and Peru. While I was in Colombia, I stayed at a backpacker hostel in Cartagena, where I met a Colombian woman who was really curious about me. At that time, I was just starting to dive into music with a little laptop my friend had brought along that had an old version of Fruity Loops. I would also take audio from videos I had recorded on my camera and convert them into MP3s to mix those sounds into my tracks. One night, I was up on the hostel roof working on some music when this woman and I started exchanging glances. Eventually, we had a few small conversations that sparked an interest between us. One morning, she invited me to a private beach a few hours away by bus, but I had to decline since I was heading to Ecuador in a few hours. We exchanged emails, and that was the start of a deep love connection. I returned to the States, and we kept in touch through letters for almost a year. This connection became my reason to return to Colombia, and I did go back alone to meet her again. We ended up living together, got married, and had a beautiful daughter. You can hear her voice on the track “My Heart” when she was about four years old. Since then, we’ve been bouncing between Colombia and Minnesota, and eventually decided we wanted to make Colombia our permanent home. I’ve been in Colombia for a little over two years now, which is the longest stretch so far, and I’m hoping to make it my home base. But who knows what the future holds?

Thank you so much for your time and interest. It’s very beautiful to share these experiences to anyone who is interested. I hope this gives you some good insights on the creation of this album.

here are some links to check out more of my music


bio.link/balsam

hope to hear from you soon!