Yes, the Coldplay have chosen Barcelona to perform, but when looking for companions they have looked to Madrid, a point of reference for both the Hinds and Ona Mafalda. It is what unites the two opening acts local who will accompany the British quartet in the concerts next week, who also have in common their youth and their status as women, as is customary in the artists chosen to open the concerts of the tour Music of the Spheres . Joining them will be the Scottish electronic pop trio The Chvrches, who have accompanied the band since their time in Brazil, defending their new single, Over .
The news took the Hinds, Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote, by surprise, an indie garage band with a decade of experience, who this Friday attended The vanguard back from the French Dordogne, where they were in the middle of recording the new album, interrupted by the two concerts they will do on the 24th and 25th to warm up the Barcelona public. “It hasn’t even given us time to get nervous because we’ve just finished recording an album, which is one of the most important things for a group,” explains Carlotta Cosials from the van in which she returns to Madrid with Ana Perrote. The news caught them off guard, since they had not planned to perform this summer to concentrate on the album, to the point that they did not even have drums and bass, a problem that they have solved ipso facto with a new formation that will premiere at the same stadium. olympic In this performance they will drop some of the new songs they are working on.
Chris Martin recommended the Hinds in 2020 via Twitter as a “pandemic antidote,” and he wants them
His relationship with Coldplay dates back to 2020, when in the midst of a pandemic Chris Martin posted a tweet describing them as an “antidote to the pandemic.” “At that time I sent him a message, but he did not answer me.” An initial disappointment that was erased when he was the one who contacted them later. “We were wanted, he wanted us by his own decision,” Carlotta explains with surprise still in her voice, while Ana is heard in the background, recalling that when she heard the news “she was jumping and screaming for five minutes.”
Ona Mafalda
Next week’s performances don’t scare the Hinds, not in vain have they been the first Spanish group to perform at landmark festivals, such as Glastonbury or Coachella. They will be “all great songs, the best of each album”, and as a gift, one of the new songs they have been recording. “We’re going to jump into the pool,” says Carlotta, seconded by Ana, who acknowledges that “she doesn’t even know the chords very well yet.” She makes them more nervous that their families are going to be present in Barcelona. If the Hinds are Spanish women who sing in English, the other opening act, Ona Mafalda, is an English woman of upbringing, who has switched to Spanish on her dark pop songs.
Known in other fields for her ties to Bulgarian royalty – she is the granddaughter of Simeon II – the artist declares herself “extremely excited” to perform with Coldplay. “It’s one of the first concerts my mom took us to when we were little,” she recalls. It was a performance in which she realized that “music had to do something in her life”. Educated in England, Mafalda trained musically at Berklee, then passing through New York before settling in Madrid, her current residence, where she ended up exploiting her relationship with electronic music thanks to her collaboration with Delaporte on let it be over . “I loved it so much that I knew that in the next project I wanted to introduce that same energy.”
After beginning her musical career in English, Mafalda switched to Spanish, with which this year she has recorded the album ona , where he talks about “those cycles of life that pass like a wave”. It is the first album where she does not sing in English, although she maintains British influences, such as drum & bass, as well as her Bulgarian roots, which stand out in the song. Breathe , where “we sample Bulgarian folk voices, a music that I love”. Overall, it is an album with songs that are “quite melancholic, although on this album I have tried not to make everything slow and sad; I make happier songs, with much more rhythm, more movement, ”he says on the phone.
Regarding the change of language, he acknowledges that at first it was a challenge. “Spanish for me was purely at home”, she explains, but once she began to sing in this language “there was no turning back”.
