Mourn

Bueno and her school friend Carla Perez Vas formed Mourn a few
 years ago. Bueno’s father had introduced her to a range of classic and contemporary punk and rock’n’roll bands, broadening her music tastes well beyond the Europop that clutters Spanish radio. “My dad is a musician, so he was always showing me bands. I discovered a lot of bands through him,” Bueno says. “When I was little I liked this sort of music so I started to look on the Internet. You can’t hear this sort of music on the radio, but you can find whatever on the Internet if you’re interested in it. But you have to go looking for it because you will never hear it here.”


In her early high school years Bueno and her sister Leia formed a band with their father, “just to have fun”. A couple of years later, while 
still at high school, Bueno and Vas decided to start their own band, recruiting Leia on bass and Antonio Postius on drums. While the band’s name is evocative, it came simply through a random selection process. “We had a very long list of band names, but we couldn’t decide on any of them. We didn’t like any 
of them, so we decided that it would be random and opened a dictionary and pointed at a word, and the word was mourn,” Bueno says.

Mourn take cues from PJ Harvey and Patti Smith, augmented with The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Replacements and The Clash. The band’s 2014 self-titled album was recorded straight to tape over two days, a deliberate attempt to capture the band’s live sound. 
“It was like a rehearsal but being recorded. It’s like we were playing at home together, but in the studio. It’s cool and it captures how we sound. It’s not over produced,” Bueno says. “We did the same with the second album, but it took a couple of weekends rather than a couple of days. We recorded something like two songs a day.”


Mourn’s first record generated interest outside 
of Spain, including from hip Brooklyn indie label Captured Tracks. “They saw our video that we recorded at our studio,” Bueno says. “We have some friends that are called Look Behind You. They make music videos with musicians playing live. They wanted to record and film us. Mike Sniper saw one of these videos and wrote to us on Facebook. He asked for our email, and he asked us if we had any label
 in America, and we said no. He was glad because he wanted to release our songs there. We introduced him to our label in Spain, so all that happened.”

Signing with Captured Tracks was the catalyst for Mourn playing outside of Spain, including shows in the US where the band members were amazed at the reception they received.
 “Playing in America was like being in a movie, it was really fun,” Bueno says. “People there were really different to people in Catalonia or Spain. I think they are more inside the music culture – they feel it more. It was more impressive that people came to our shows because it’s the United States – it’s so far away. It was a great experience.”

For Mourn’s second album, Ha, Ha, He., the band again sought to recreate their live intensity, though this time around they not only took longer in the studio, but also chose to disguise the subjects of
 the songs. 
“It’s not as obvious what we’re talking about. It came out as writing not as directly. I think it’s kind of clear what we’re singing about, but it’s different to the songs on the first album,” Bueno says. The fact that Bueno sings in English helps with 
the subterfuge. “Singing in English is kind of a protection or shield,” she says. “When we finished recording the songs I thought it would be more difficult for me to sing the songs without thinking about those things.”


Mourn identify as Catalonians rather than Spaniards. Catalonia remains proud of its cultural heritage and radical political tradition. In 1936 Catalonia was
 the scene of the world’s first (and only) anarchist government; when art historian Robert Hughes went to write about the great art of Barcelona, he found himself drawn to the unique culture and politics
of the region. “We’re Catalan and have our own traditions, so we don’t feel that we’re Spanish, but I don’t know how that’s influenced our music.” 
Bueno isn’t so positive, however, about the economic future in Spain. “I think there’s no hope,” Bueno says. “It’s frustrating because nothing’s changing. Hopefully there are some political movements that are trying to change this, but it’s a slow process. But a lot of people here are angry with the world, and I don’t feel comfortable here. I’m studying and trying to make my own things, so I hope the situation changes because it’s not very good now.”