Maŕa Peralta Interview: Creating a Rebellion

Maŕa Peralta Interview// Visually, “Rebellion” is subjective, giving the viewers an individual experience by creating their own story or relationship with Maŕa from the outside. The film also examines Maŕa’s relationship with the viewer as represented by the camera. Her sound is a synthesis of deep, complex atmospheres and punchy rhythms tinged with dance-floor grit. Blurring the lines between ambient, experimental music, and deep bass rhythm, Maŕa’s expertise in sound now has a graphic landscape in the form of her own haunting, virtual oasis.

Maŕa Peralta Interview

What sort of headspace were you in when making Rebellion?

Maybe that day I felt kind of restricted and I wanted to revolt or just kind of create chaos . Like have the mentality that I’m not going to listen to what you have to say and I’m not going to listen to the rules that you’re putting upon me.

I think what’s important to me is improvisation and kind of creating a real feeling or emotion or sound that shows what I’m feeling that day..

Rebellion kind of has this wide range and that’s really special because I get to show all these different sounds that I love

I think the music industry is very male dominated. I feel like there’s never really many ways for me to actually say how I feel Or maybe not the audience that really wants to engage in a way of depth. So I think it was just saying like,

Hey listen, this is how I feel. I think a lot of women feel this way.

How do you feel like the music video expresses those emotions, it’s a pretty surreal experience..

So yeah, it was very much just subjective for the audience to kind of figure out like,

What is this? How do I feel about this?

It’s more of an experience for the audience to kind of understand it in their own mind. I didn’t want to tell a story but I did want to express these ideas of struggle and have major components in it that allow you to have a feeling towards, The viewer can explore it in their own way.

What is you earliest memory of making music?

When I was 12 or 13, my dad had me taking lessons singing with an opera singer twice a week for about four years.

Because of that, I think ambiance has always been very much part of my life unknowingly.

I was in choir as well for eight years, competition choir, church choir. I think that’s where all of these elements come from, but I’m just doing it in my own way now.

When I came to Brooklyn in 2015, I started experimenting and playing with my roommate at the time he had like all of this modular equipment. I got really into soundscapes and like experimental, weird glitchy stuff and started gravitating towards that.

When you were in Choir, did you ever write songs, or you did just sing at the time?

So actually that’s a really good question, I guess I’ve always wrote poetry, but not really like lyrical things that had structure. Just writing things down in my little books. When I moved to Brooklyn, I made it a point to have these books around because I was going through a lot when I got here. So when going back into all these books and reading these old poems I just thought that I need to write songs about them.

Rebellion is quite the journey, almost like a huge crescendo. Is that more important for you create a journey for the listener?

I love to have progression in my music. Maybe because that’s something I really focus on in my DJ sets. I like to take people into a journey a lot of the times I’m playing a bunch of these elements that I really love. A lot of ambient sounds, things that are a little bit other worldly, ethereal.

When I have like a three or four hour set or even longer. There’s way more of a probability to kind of get someone into another kind of level or just another universe in a way if you’re really actually listening. And I think listening in the club atmosphere is really important. as well.

What does music do for you?

I think it’s obviously a sense of release for me. I always felt that I need to do something about whatever energy I have inside. It’s really fun to hear the progression from where I used to be, to where I am now. It’s scary. You’re like, did that literally come out of my mouth? I feel like now the point of where I’m at now. I’m so glad that I started when I did and continued doing it.

Do you get the same joy now than you did when started?

When I was younger, maybe I’ve always been kind of like a sad person. So like I felt that music always connected me and felt like the right place., the right kind of motion to do. I think since growing up and being an adult, I realized that depression is a real thing but you have to balance it out. Music is definitely my way to balance myself out and a way to find happy places and sad places.

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