Camilo Navarro, better known as Cienfue, is a panamian songwriter who recently has released his video of Life in the tropics single. We heard it and we love it, it makes you dance and move your head since the first note, the song has this electro bit mix with a traditional sound that makes you feel like in a beautiful beach in a sunny day, enjoying the nature and being happy.
Now, talking about the video, it has spectacular visuals and photography. The idea of seeing all through a kaleidoscope it’s very original. This video reflects a cultural Caribbean beauty that says to the world “This is Panama.”
On the other hand, Sunset sesh, the third single has this sticky rhythm as in The life in the tropics, but with a much fresher sound that makes you feel relaxed and, as in the title of the song says, like in a beautiful sunset sesh.
We have the opportunity to talk with Camilo Navarro about this new material and we also talk about their influences in music, festivals, good and weird experiences and more, so keep reading.
MWN: You just have to release Life in the tropics, tell us a little bit about this new single, what did you get inspired for it?
Cienfue: I got inspired a bit in the tropical wave of Panama, thinking if I’m going to make something out off of my heart, from Panama, from my land to the word, what has to be, and a lot of the best thing that goes out of Panama it’s tropical, so I decided to get inspired in the psychedelia tropical, as we call out to the genre that we play right now and live it’s like a carnival. I have a girl, called Cheery Rouse, who dance incredible “polleras” (traditional skirts) and she dances in the video moving this skirts in slow camera, so live it’s like a carnival inspired in dead day, Latin american and Panamian folk traditions and part of the inspiration of my music and this video was the ayahuasca movement.
MWN: What was behind the video of Life in the tropics, how came the idea of seeing things as in a kaleidoscope?
Cienfue: The kaleidoscope is something that have always like me because it’s similar to when you’re under the influence of some psychedelic drug and the feeling of receiving more information than you’re used to.
A lot of the musical psychedelia comes from the 60s when groups like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, including Elvis, were famous for going to Mexico to take the ceremony of the magic mushrooms with María Sabina, that inspired me a lot, as well as Castañeda’s books about the desert and the peyote.
MWN: How was the creative process for the album?
Cienfue: Well, three years ago I started to write the songs and we went to a studio in Brooklyn called Strange Weather Studios and it was like being in a time capsule because they had all the vintage instruments of the 60s and 70’s. Then I edited the songs in my personal studio in Panama for around a year and finally, the songs were mixed in Mexico in Phil Vinall’s Toy Factory Mexico under the direction of David Francis O’Gorman.
The album is almost finished and I’m going to release a song by month during 2019, The third one, called as same as the album is inspired in the surf and in the mystical natural vibes that there is at 6 pm in the afternoon when you’re in the water, the sunset, waiting for the wave and the sea turns pink.
MWN: Why do release a single by month and not the full album?
Cienfue: Now whit the streaming and the digital platforms like Spotify, iTunes, etc., we have realized that reaches a lot more people if you keep the music fresh and continuously you get single after single, with the algorithmic playlists they put you on the radio for more people.
MWN: Why launch this album in english?
Cienfue: I’ve lived my whole life in Panama and I’ve never had a song in English even though I have more than 65 songs in Spotify and none in English, my specialty is writing songs, it’s what I like about music, writing a lot.
On the other hand, being a surfer, I go to surfing camps where there are many surfers who only understand english, so I decided, in order to reach a bigger market of people, to get this album in english and also because the album is very inspired by surfing.
I had panic, the day before the single came out I had a nervous breakdown because I didn’t know what all my fans were going to think, that they were already used to only music in Spanish and thought that this new material wasn’t relevant; but their reaction was positive and that was amazing.
MWN: Let’s go back a bit in your career, tell us how you were interested in music?
Cienfue: I grew up in Panama in the 80s and 90s and I lived through the military dictatorship of Panama with General Noriega and the american invasion, those were like two or three years that you couldn’t go out, because of the curfew, you couldn’t be outside after 6 pm and all the young people had to find how to entertain us, so one way to pass the time was the guitar, the piano, watching video on MTV, which influenced me a lot and it was like a dream come true when in 2006 I released my solo album and I could place two videos on national MTV as independent, Medio alcohólico melancólico y Mi colombiana.
MWN: any band, record or song that has marked you as a musician?
Cienfue: In Panama we are used to all this mix of cultures and therefore to all kinds of music, this type of musical schizophrenia got into my mind when composing and suddenly in a song I want a bass like afro-Caribbean but I mix it with a latin rhythm and a letter in english. I wanted to take it to the next level and make it a cosmopolitan and diverse music from Panama to the world.
MWN: What concerts, including festivals in which you have performed, are in your top 3?
Cienfue: Uh, top 3. First the two times I went to Vive Latino, 2010 was spectacular, like 15 thousand people in the second stage and it was like 4 in the afternoon, with an incredible sun, I loved it.
We also played by opening Juanes in Panama two years ago on the Verano Canal, which was spectacular. And if I had to choose a third one, I think Rock al Parque Colombia because I also loved it, it was something epic too.
MWN: Finally, something you would like to tell the people who are going to read this interview
Cienfue: Well, we love you very much and if we’re going to spend 3 minutes with you listening to our track, I want them to be minutes in which we can brighten up life in a positive way, which is what I’m focusing on lately, send them a good vibe from the tropic and enjoy Life in the tropic.
You can listen Cienfue in all the digital platforms, so don’t miss his music and the singles that are coming month by month. You can found and follow him on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as Cienfue or in his official site cienfue.com.
Interview by: Berenice Yines | Exclusively for @Music, Why Not!