The Chilean singer-songwriter distills the full range of emotions from her first year as a new mother with heart-wrenching rawness.
By Sigal Ratner-Arias
Francisca Valenzuela condenses all the possible feelings of her first year as a new mother into MALDITA, her seventh studio album, which serves as a bold and deeply honest statement.
Released Thursday (July 30) under her own label, Frantastic Records, the 12-track set navigates emotions ranging from hope and love to postpartum depression and confusion in songs like “Bugambilia,” “Malacara” and “Debería Tomar Más Agua.” The album opens with its title track, and from the very first lines the artist captures our full attention: “I curse the day I was born, I curse the day I gave birth, I curse my youth, eternal ineptitude,” she sings with heart-wrenching rawness over sparse piano notes.
“The concept of MALDITA arises partly from this sense of ambivalence and contradiction,” the Chilean singer-songwriter explains to Billboard Español. “It’s about saying, ‘I’m in a great moment, in a luminous moment, in a moment of revolution, of love, of tenderness, and at the same time I’m terrified, conflicted, complicated, tense, on edge and feeling incapable.’ It’s saying, ‘I chose this moment; the world told me it would be the best moment of my life, the world told me I would know how to do it, and I don’t know how to do it. I’m suffering and it’s terrible. It feels like a curse because I fail all the time.’
