To possess an artist's sensitivity is a double-edged sword, as Indigo de Souza knows all too well. Her gift inspires beauty and sorrow in equal measure, with the latter taking hold as she reflects on the complexities of death, the state of the world, and the destruction of nature. Though her shyness initially strikes me as we begin to talk, it quickly fades away, replaced by a passionate rage as she laments humanity's ability to build parking lots and malls on the very land that sustains us. It shows that at times, she feels adrift in the world, lost in its chaos and confusion. But even in those moments, she clings to the magic of the everyday and holds herself with care.
Indigo de Souza is a true artist in every sense of the word, imbued with a passion that burns as brightly as the sun. She is passionate about the human condition, the power of community, the sanctity of nature, and the sublime art of creation. Talking to her is akin to reading a poem, for she chooses her words with care, crafting comments that resonate with such clarity that it gives me goosebumps here and there. This very passion is the driving force behind her music, which serves as a portal into the depths of her mind. Each song is a tunnel through which she pours her heart and soul, using music as her confessional and baring her innermost thoughts to the world.
Her recent record All of This Will is almost the album embodiment of doing shadow work. She gracefully sheds her guilt, discards her incessant need for answers, and relinquishes her obsession with death. She embraces complexity and uncertainty with open arms. The album is a thrilling emotional roller coaster, with each track featuring its own unique highs and lows. One moment you may find yourself dancing along to a poppy, infectious hook, and the next, you're lost in introspection or caught up in Indigo's impassioned rage.
The album's sonic landscape is just as diverse and captivating as its emotional range. She has carefully crafted each song with a keen sense of musicianship and artistic intuition. The instrumentation ebbs and flows, from the raw, guitar-driven energy reminiscent of a grunge sound to atmospheric, dreamlike synths. The standout track, "Younger & Dumber", is an emotional powerhouse that showcases Indigo's raw talent and emotional depth. Its stripped-back production allows her powerful voice and poetic lyrics to shine through.
I've recently sat down with Indigo de Souza to talk about her music and everything in between.
Your music is characterized by raw emotion. How do you balance being vulnerable while also maintaining your own privacy and boundries?
I think my music is very personal because all I know is my own experience. If I try to write a song about something that's not my personal life it doesn't feel true to me. I like a song to come alive on its own. Due to that personal aspect, I have fans who are carrying the weight of those songs. I'll end up seeing them at shows and I'll have intense moments with fans. They often end up crying on my shoulders. The way that I maintain my boundary is only going out to interact with fans if I have the energy for it.
Your songwriting often deals with themes of identity and self discovery. How do you see your own personal growth and evolution reflected in your music over the years?
Listening back, I feel like my music gets more and more clear and more and more certain of its direction, more to the point. I've read reviews that said that the songs on my new album were quite short and I love where I have gotten with my songwriting in that way. I never feel like I have to say more than what the point is at this time in my life.
What do you think you know now as a musician who has recorded three full-length albums that you didn't know when you first started out?
I didn't know that I was capable of thinking about all aspects of a song and what I wanted each part to feel like. In the beginning I just assumed that the people around me knew more than I did. I couldn't trally trust myself in having ideas about instruments besides the ones I play. Now, I can hear all the parts in my head and I can tell if something is missing. It's a beautiful thing to come to trust within myself.
In “Time Back” you talk about how you despise someone but the sense of hope that you have for yourself is still there. You talk about getting back up again. What things in life fill you up with hope?
Community, self-reliance and resilience that there is naturally in humans to find strength. I struggle with that a bit, finding strenght within myself I mean. Sometimes I feel very strong and sometimes I don't. My life feels like a dance between those two emotions and me trying to be okay with that. It was a bit harder before I had a great community because I felt like I didn't have a place in the world and that people didn't care if I was around. What brings me alive is the power of nature and how it teaches us things.
Your recent album switches back and forth between having faith in yourself to get better and still being bitter about old experiences. Has making music on this subject led you to a sense of relief?
It's a hard question because making an album exists in so many different parts. Sometimes you take songs from different periods of time or you record a song which is very old. Mixing, mastering, writing... There are so many things that you have to do. It's not one moment. But I think that while I was recording this album I had a very big shift in my life and you can hear it in the music.
Parking lots seem to be the default setting for your songs. Is it where you go to reminisce about your life?
Not really. It's just that parking lots are very symbolic places for me. Since I was a baby I've been going to grocery stores with my parents and I was very familiar with the ones I went to. They would always have the same parking lots so I always had an emotional connection to those parking lots in my hometown. What's funny is that I moved to a different place and here, I have the same chain of grocery stores and eventhough the parking lots are different, the inside of the store is the same.
For some reason that feeling of familiarity mixed with a slight difference is interesting to me. The act of pulling to the same parking lot over and over again makes me feel strange about existence. When I was a kid there was a specific moment when I had realized that parking lots hadn't always been there. I remember thinking "Oh my God! This whole place used to belong to the nature. What? How did someone build this place?" I think it's also wild in that way. We drive our cars onto these slabs that are covering the earth. It makes me think a lot.
I think that you have undergone a shift in your contemplation of existential themes, particularly death, as your recent works seem to allocate less attention to this topic. I am curious to know how this transformation has influenced your present perspective on existence.
Themes like death and spirituality are always occupying my mind. I just became a little less dark. Within this period of my life, I found a new community and I felt like I had belonged somewhere. I realized how excited I was to spend time alive. Before, I often thought how great it would be to not be alive! I was struggling so much. It's such an interesting thing how you can choose to be here ot not. Everyday you're decicding to stay and it used to be very difficult for me. Now, I wake up with all of these special people and places I care about in the back of my mind. I have the strenght of those things on my wings and I'm able to move through life with more purpose and intention. Having that community has really thought me a lot about how I wanted to exist whether it'd be how I treat people or treat myself. My job has become a lot more important to me because of it too.
Do you think being as sensitive as you are is a blessing or a curse?
I don't know. In the grand scheme of things it's a blessing because there needs to be people that are this way to open the world up more but it feels very hard for me.
In All this will end you say “I don’t want anything to do with magic” What do you mean by that?
It doesn't even mean anything to me now but at the time it meant the two sides of me. I have a side where I'm embracing things, I'm moving forward and I'm allowing change to flow. On the other hand, I have a side where I can be very self-loathing and destructive. I remember when I wrote that line it was kind of like a passing through of those two mentalities: Embracing magic and turning away from it.
You're currently in LA. How do you resonate with the atmosphere there? Isn't it a bit terrifying?
Now I'm starting to understand why people like it but I'm not a big fan. My publishing company flew me out here to try some sessions with different producers. I clicked with this one person and we started recording an album which is half way done and it's crazy. Meeting him and seeing all the people he is connected to opened me up a little to liking it more here but I still would never live here. There is a general feeling of otherness. People are so focused on themselves and what they're trying to achieve. I feel like it would take years to find the right community. I've met a lot of lonely people. The sad part is it's not very safe. There are a lot of earthquakes and hurricanes. It feels like the nature is trying to take this place back.
What are your plans for the future musically? What’s a bucketlist thing you’d want to do?
I just want to keep doing what I'm doing and put out more albums. I also want to do pop music, which is what I'm doing here in LA. I don't have a lot of goals when it comes to success. Since I've been little my idea of success was doing a job that I loved anyway. Someday I would love to make enough money to be able to support all the people in my life who don't fit into society and have a hard time making money. For some reason I've got this opportunity to follow this path in which maybe I could find some relief for those people.
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