Welcome to Borito‘s time machine music that sends you back your summer vacation. The album is all about bringing back innocence, the freedom of loving, living and creating without the obligations and disappointments of adulthood.
Borito’s debut album, “What we Have Now“, is independently produced by band members Yael Copeland and Shahar Levi. Yael and Shahar are Tel Aviv musicians.
Borito songs are fun, danceable, dreamy and colorful arrangements influenced by contemporary indie pop bands, a love for post-funk and storytellers from the best of the rock and folk traditions.
What do you have Now?
So right now we have an album that was created pre CoronaVirus. Already in 2019 we had a realization that the future of our world is in danger. Because of climate change and other global phenomenons the world we grew up into (born in the 90’s) is rapidly changing.
The things our parents taught us about the world might not be as relevant today. Corona only strengthened that feeling.
We still wanted to put out the album cause this is what we have – our friendships, our music, our freedom to create and that’s what kept us going.
How much has growing up in Israel affected your music?
We are all musicians and are involved in other musical projects that reflect the israeli music of the hebrew language more than Borito. Borito is really an expression of love to genres that we listen to and don’t have representation in Israel.
Yael who wrote the songs is 1st generation in Israel and her parents came from the U.S, which affected the music she grew up with and her creative process.
We are Israeli in our straightforwardness and our writing is affected by the reality here. Because it’s so tense and small we wanted to “escape” with our music and add some sweetness to our lives. Every Place has its own difficulties and also beautiful things – Israel included. This is our home and hebrew is the language we laugh and cry in.
Can you let us in on a little bit about the local underground scene in Tel Aviv?
These are great questions! As I said in the previous question, Israel is a very small place. It is also a home for many cultures and backgrounds. That creates such a variety of genres and music that is not heard anywhere else. Pre CoronaVirus you had the main music venues that showcased the indie scene from punk to ethnic to hip hop music. There is a very loving very devoted crown but it is in small numbers.
Now a lot of women dominate the scene which is also amazing.
During this time culture at large and the underground scene suffered from the lack of government support. People backstage like sound engineers (Shahar our drummer is one of them) and more didn’t receive financial support and that is very sad.
The music community is very strong and is not willing to give up forming support systems, underground live shows and creating music in great volumes.
Even if there is no support for culture, culture exists and cannot be broken.
There’s a 90s taste in your style, do you gather inspiration from this era?
Yes that’s true! We are 90’s babies and we love the era. We are very influenced by current bands like Alvvays, Tops, The orielles, Men I Trust and more… Indie Pop and Lo-Fi music and trends are something we really feel like affected and created Borito. We do love listening to indie bands from the 90s like That dog, Liz Phair and also big ones like No Doubt. We love to and take inspiration from a riff, a vocal recording or a synth sound.
Also I love clothes (Yael) and really wanted to just bring colorful, bright and childish clothes to the mix –
Indie needs some more happiness haha.
Borito, what does Borito mean? Is it a Spanish food?:)
So the food is actually spelled Burrito. So what is Borito you ask? well we did think about the name while eating Burritos we wanted a childish, misspelled feel to the name of the band and also to not be completely associated with the food. My grandmother is mexicen so she said it’s ok but still we are a band not a food truck. Me and Shahar started calling each other Borito as a nickname and it just felt right.
Your album “celebrates the sweetness in life that can be easily forgotten”, why do you think we as human beings forget about good things?
Again great question! umm.. especially now when a lot of things are changing and it’s hard to see a bright future we really want people to look at the big and little things they have and make them happy. Love, Friends, Dancing alone in the room, dressing up and more… We feel like the media and a lot of the music deals with very difficult things and although that is important it is hard for us to keep on smiling with all this in our hearts.
Being an adult today is tough so even for a few minutes of listening to a song we want to be able to give people a little break. We have jobs, we demonstrate against wrongdoings, we pay bills and we believe in fighting for a better world.
One way to do that is reminding yourself of your inner child and the beauty in that naive nature and joy from mundane things.
BORITO Band
www.boritoband.com
IG: borito_band
FB:@boritoband
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