GutterPutter

Mabe Fratti is the name who is going to ring a bell for those who are following Spanish-sung music. She’s a singer and cellist born in Guatemala whose fascination with music began in her teenhood when she experimented with a wide variety of genres and styles with her cello. Her young adulthood was spent in Mexico where she performed with like-minded musicians like Gudrun Gut from Germany or professional improviser Julián Bonequi. From 2019 to 2022, she released three albums which gradually allowed her to garner more attention for her outside-the-box approach to making music. Then, 2024 saw her crack through to being a more serious name to remember as Sentir Que No Sabes, released under Tin Angel Records, saw critical acclaim for its fantastical mixing of genres. To many, it’s very much so unique and it’s one that I enjoy listening to even if it’s not one that I would consider to be among the best of the year.

Fratti’s time spent in Mexico was also the point when she met her partner Hector Tosta who then had played for the Venezuela-originated band La Vida Bohème. Together, the two would occasionally work together in songwriting to help spark some ideas for Fratti’s songs. It was in 2023 when the two decided to push their collaboration to the next level by founding Titanic – an art pop project with a style that is familiarly comparable to post rock and chamber music. Vidrio is the debut released in the same year which helps to further grow Fratti’s reputation as one of the best music artists in Mexico right now. It helps to build on the momentum that had led to Sentir Que No Sabes’s creation in the time which saw the cellist be at her most prolific in terms of output. 

With one studio record out each year technically since Fratti’s debut, 2025 aims to continue that on with Tosta having more influence under the umbrella that is Titanic. Hagen is the result. It’s an avant-garde sophomore effort which leans into more conventional art rock directions. Which translates more so to unorthodox song structures when it comes to instrumentation without clear experimentation. ‘Lágrima del sol’ highlights this with the sheer sense of improvisation in the playing. The guitar playing feels as if it’s in a perpetual state of doing a solo, the percussive rhythms are broken between which instrument to carry on the beat, the cello’s vibrato lingers without regard to the articulation. It has a life on its own which allows for a build-up to a gorgeous synth-like keyboard after 1 minute and 30 seconds. Such can be felt as well in ‘Gotera’ and ‘Libra’ with its respective industrial percussion and horn-like Optigan.

The vibrancy of the instrumentation does serve as a double-edged sword in setting up the expectations of listening to the entirety of Hagen. While Fratti’s songwriting generally errs toward a slower pace and a jazzy looseness to its structure, Hagen’s clear affinity towards rock makes it more dependent on making itself be as uptempo as possible. This in turn ironically means that there would be relatively little ways for it to diversify itself without coming off as either underwhelming or awkward. ‘Te tragaste el chicle’, to preface, has its lyrics be on escapism but the slower pacing of the instrumentation, from its kick drum and grandiose keyboard chords, makes it come off as a tad bit sloppy adult-oriented rock music. It’s the kind of lyrical dissonance that failed to let its intent go far beyond just sounding pretty. ‘La Dueña’ falls into the same trap whereby its juxtaposing cellos makes the song veer toward opaque melodrama. 

Hurting in its lacklustre delivery is the outro in ‘Alzando el trofeo’ which leaves behind its improvisational playing in favour of Fratti’s layered singing and melodic piano. Its funereal impression might befit the focus on being unable to live up to your potential, but it only comes off as being depressive without any cathartic closure. Improvisation would have been a better option in representing the sporadicity and abstraction that comes with regret. Otherwise, it would be akin to one of those downtrodden ballads from the 1970s that had relied too extensively on minor keys to imitate the mood of sadness without any moments that would have truly pierced you.

As for the rest of the songs, they stride on through with the playful energy that comes with the instrumentation. ‘Escarbo dimensiones’ breaks down with its infectious guitar riff half-way through which compliments the crescending rhythm that continues to grow and expand. ‘La Gallina degollada’ carries itself the industrial kind of percussion that suits the nightmarish experience of seeing someone kill an animal without remorse. Or is there a more allegorical meaning behind it? The vagueness in some of Fratti’s writing is a bit of a hit-or-miss kind at least in Hagen where she might allude to a dystopian kind of world without any elaboration on it. It could simply just be that her voice serves simply as an instrument to add to the texture which might make for a more disappointing impression although it would at least explain the missed opportunities on some of the weaker tracks.

The last two tracks to talk about would be regarded as subtle standouts in that it doesn’t come off as being clear exercises in Fratti and Tosta’s creative apex. Instead, it feels more unintentional in how its execution makes them more appealing to me personally than on other tracks. ‘Pájaro de fuego’ contains the cello which lasts throughout virtually the entire song, its sound being a sustained vibrato of the legato that almost serves as a backing vocal. It’s almost gorgeous in its presence to the point where even in the shimmering synths, it is as resistant as the lyrical theme of free-thinking. ‘La trampa sale’ marks the one moment where the slow pace is not a consistent mistake so much as it is a triumphant declaration. The way that the drumming paves the way to the singular holler and the cello is epic in its managed tempo and its climatic rise as the structure starts to loosen up allows the wait to be rewarding. It’s a shame that it’s not the designated final track of the whole album.

As the latest in Fratti’s hot streak, Hagen isn’t the kind of album that I would say best highlights her strengths. Because the instrumentation generally doesn’t appear to follow a certain tempo nor does it abide to one clear structure, its overt use of rock instrumentation incentivises quicker pacing at the cost of consistency or diversity within its tracklist. Without leaning more heavily into its post-rock influences, the album’s biggest value lies in its playfulness which will vary between each song. Hagen will be most appreciated by art music fans who want a project that outflanks even the likes of Black Country, New Road or Silvia Pérez Cruz in instrumental vividity. Am I one of those fans? Unfortunately not, but Titanic should at least be proud of the album’s lack of restraint even if it might not have shown their proficiency as far as it could have.

3.1/5