Maulén, the project of composer Carlos Ibarra, is now streaming the beautifully noisy new single "Rostro" featuring Behzad Barazandeh. The single features a video done by Johan Lundsten and is from the second installment of Maulén's EP series El miedo de amar pero igual lo hago due out April 27. Keep up with Maulén here on Instagram and here on Spotify.
"The theme of the video took form during a chapter of my life when I had a massive cancer scare; I found a huge lump in my stomach which led to five weeks of tests and hospital visits," said Lundsten of the video. "I lost my mother to cancer in 2016 and I remember her telling me that the hardest part of the disease was not knowing; waiting for the next batch of test results, the next prognoses, the next percentage chance of remission or growth. The answer, regardless of which one, was often easier to deal with than the waiting and not knowing.
"I kept envisioning the moment I would get a result, and what trajectory it would send me on. There was no way I could fight off my thoughts of death so I chose to embrace them – I decided to practice dying. To accept that I only have a couple of months left despite not knowing that to actually be the case. The sense of clarity and gratitude for every single little thing around me was astounding. I felt closer to my memories of my mother than ever before. It was also an absolutely dreadful and lonely existence, since I didn't tell anyone around me as to not make them worried before I knew for a fact I was sick – something that felt important at the time but I'm not sure I would do again.
"After the five weeks of waiting, it turned out to be an extremely inflamed muscle in the abdomen. No cancer. I was left with a second chance at life, but before moving on I needed to manifest these dark fears from my mind through art. When I heard 'Rostro', I knew right away that it was the right vessel. The video is a wordless journey through the mind, a meditation on the absoluteness of death, a depiction of non-return – a snapshot of the fever dream I lived during those five weeks.
"It has changed me in ways I don't fully yet understand, and I hope to find connection with people through this video. We're here a short while, but we're not alone."
