Ichikara Valdez wants to push musical boundaries in Houston. He believes his band is already doing that sonically and he’s hoping its approach to live shows will be a model for other genre-defying acts.
“I started in 2018 to experiment with this new sound, new to me because it was a lot more open, there was a lot more space,” he continued. “I started shopping this new music I was working on and nobody was really catching it, or they weren’t hearing what I was hearing in it. It was wide open space. For me it was like, shit, it’s limitless, you have all these directions you can go melodically, rhythmically and everything.
“That was crazy because I could have never imagined, damn, we’re moving this quick, going this direction, and in my mind I’m like, fuck, I’m having imposter syndrome the whole time,” he laughed. “I chalk it up to the universe but also the intentionality of what I was making. I feel like spirit precedes talent a lot of times when you’re coming together and collaborating. Having a similar energy that ties it all together really kind of sets that glue in motion.
“I revere these cats. It was hard for me to ask some of them, hey, you know, I’ve got this thing going on, I’d love you to be a part of the band. Again, like-minded people and I feel like spiritual energy just goes so much further than anything else. Everybody was like, ‘Naw, I fuck with what you’re doing, I got you.’
“I always wanted us performing in museums and galleries just because I’m also a fan of some aesthetics in art and fashion and things of that nature, and I needed a place for all of those things to come together in a cohesive performance. That’s where I felt we’d be most able to pull that off, in galleries and museums.”
“We’ve been watching each other for so long. And I’ve always been like, alright, yo, if we’re going to move in any direction I need to go where the eclectic folk are. I need to go where people are pushing envelopes, doing something different. There’s a bit of nostalgia to it but also at the end of the day they’re really pressing to fucking push this vision forward musically that they have. If we’re going to be performing in Houston, it’ll probably be in that community.