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Cohcemea Gastelum Interview: State of Connection

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The Dap-Kings were the steady force behind the late, great, impenetrable Sharon Jones, and one of them is ready to break out. On February 22nd, multi-instrumentalist Cochemea Gastelum releases his debut album of jazz, funk, and soul, All My Relations. The record is inspired by his roots; Gastelum has Native American ancestry (Yaqui and Mescalero Apache), and he fully explores and embraces it on Relations. Everything from the rhythms to the names of the tracks references not only specific heritages but exemplifies the idea and importance of heritage and, as Gastelum puts it, the “interconectedness” of everything.

Gastelum came up with the idea for the record during Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings’ final year of touring, and fellow band member Gabe Roth helped make it happen, assembling 10 of New York's finest musicians. Gastelum also made short films inspired by the album’s tracks in collaboration with director Erez Horovitz. It all shows a side of Gastelum you’ve heard for a while but perhaps never fully appreciated until now: band leader and curator.

I spoke to Gastelum last month during our respective polar vortexes. (It was colder in Chicago, but he didn’t have heat in upstate New York, so nobody really won.) He’s planning on touring later this month and doing a record release show in New York on March 22nd. Read the interview below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: Why are you releasing your debut album under just your first name?

Cochemea Gastelum: Good question. I always played in the past with releasing music with a pseudonym, and we didn’t decide how this would be released. When it came down to it, it just felt right. Without going too deep into it, my name, growing up in the U.S., is not common, and I think that because I was really embracing my roots, it just felt right. It’s something I had been thinking about for a really long time, before even talking about this record. I kind of imagined it. When we started talking about it, it came to be. It was pretty organic.

SILY: What struck me about the album was that the songs are obviously inspired by tradition--and a lot of different traditions--in terms of genre and areas, but it’s inspired a lot by time and place, even some places that don’t exist. Was there anything else that inspired the record as a whole?

CG: Musically, Gabe and I used to listen to a lot of records on the road, and from them, the genesis was making a record based around drums and horns and having a lot of the melody come from the drums and the horns. That was the beginning of the concept, and from there, it took on this whole other life. Once we got the casting of everybody, everybody brought a piece of themselves to it, and as it rode along, it became All My Relations. My background is native, and that’s something we say in prayer, and acknowledging the interconnections of all things and the familial aspect of musicians and what they bring to it.

SILY: The sounds recall a lot of different things. Listening to “Seyewailo”, the first minute, knowing you were from New York, sounded like NYC to me, but you talk about it being inspired by nature. Did you keep things ambiguous, or do you feel like the music you produced is very personal and more definite?

CG: Things have multiple meanings. “Seyewailo” was definitely influenced by where I live now and being in the woods. My culture, Yaqui culture, Seyewailo is The Flower World, an enchanted place, seen through the eyes of the deer, which is sacred. I have deer coming through here, so that’s the imagery that came to mind. I was feeling enchanted when I composed the song.

SILY: The album features a variety of tempos and is incredibly well sequenced in that way. How did you come about with the order of the songs?

CG: Gabe and I came up with the sequence. I kind of wanted to tell a story musically, and it felt like the way things flowed together--a lot of times you make records and you mess with the sequence a lot. This one, we didn’t really mess around with too much. The first one we came up with ended up being the one. It kind of arranged itself, you might say [laughs].

SILY: The first track, “Maso Ye'eme”, starts out entirely in one speaker, and then it pans. Why did you do that?

CG: I kind of wanted to create a sort of psychedelic experience from the beginning. I thought later that it might throw people off, checking their headphones and speakers that the connection wasn’t working. But it was something we decided to go with to make the music move. The title in Yaqui is “deer dancer.” So I imagined a dance of the deer giving its life to the people. That’s the imagery of all the drums--moving across spatially and in the panoramic experience.

SILY: Only a couple tracks include vocals or any sort of voice--the title track and “Asatoma”, a prayer. Did you want the instruments to do most of the talking?

CG: Not necessarily. I don’t know if there was any thought put into the vocals like that. The vocals came when it felt like that was supposed to happen.

SILY: Did you come up with the album title before the title track, or the track first?

CG: We all wrote the music for that one, and one thing led to another. At the end, when we recorded the tune, I suggested we say, “All my relations.” We had this chant going--“ain’t gonna build no wall”--which is still relevant, obviously. When we say, “All my relations,” we’re honoring our ancestors and the interconnections of all things. It felt appropriate. I felt that was expressed in the love and camaraderie of the music-making, but on a more universal level it just made sense. That was it.

SILY: Do you think the album is political or inherently political?

CG: I think so. It could be interpreted that way. Considering the times we’re living in, all this division, fracture, looking around and seeing how we’re treating the earth and the natural world, I wanted to make something that embraces the natural world and calls attention to that and calls attention to the things we have in common. Taking all these strands of everyone and seeing how we’re all one thing.

SILY: The three tracks towards the end--“Sonora”, “Los Muertos”, and “Escalero”--are pretty short. Why did you group them together?

CG: We had recorded these interludes. We did two sessions--the first was 24 hours of collective writing. We had “All My Relations”, which was a longer piece. And then these interludes. As we mixed everything, and certain things made it. Those tunes, “Sonora” had a whole other ending, and you can kind of hear the beginnings of it. But the way it is, it flows into “Los Muertos”. A plaintive existence is being acknowledged. “Sonora” is my ancestors, going into the spirits, going into “Mescalero”--my grandmother was Mescalero Apache. Something in the rhythm reminded me of visiting Mexico when I was a kid. That’s just kind of how it went when we were listening.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the album art?

CG: The inspiration was just kind of just taking it back to the natural world. Being among the trees and acknowledging the worldview that the trees have a spirit just like we do and the air and the mountains and the deer and the four-legged and the two-legged. To be in that natural of a space, it’s an acknowledgement of that concept.

SILY: Do you think live, you’ll be mostly faithful to the record, or will you improvise a lot?

CG: I’m gonna see what happens. The record was its own thing. Depends on who is playing. Most of everyone on the record is gonna be at the release show, but taking it on the road will be different. I’d like to see the music take on its own life.

SILY: What else is next for you?

CG: Right now, I’m just kind of focused on this project. I’m gonna go out on tour in Kevin Morby’s band in the spring. I played on his new record. Other than that, just focused on getting this music out to the world and taking it all over the place.

SILY: Are the Dap-Kings still an entity on their own?

CG: The Dap-Kings are family. It’s just kind of been sort of laying low. If the right thing comes along, we’ll do it, but everyone’s kind of focused on their own stuff. We did some shows with Jon Batiste this year, which were really fun. It was great to be together with everybody again and play some music. Jon’s great.

Hopefully, there’ll be some other things that come up. There’s talk of doing some recording, but everyone is playful with other things they’re doing, which is good. Everyone is able to stretch out and do their own thing.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching lately that’s caught your attention?

CG: I really love film. I’m always watching movies. I’m really happy Roma is getting all the attention it’s getting. It’s great to see an indigenous woman in the lead role. I end up re-watching a lot of movies I’ve seen before. I’m really into the work of Jodorowsky, and I’ve been watching documentaries on different musicians. In terms of books, I’ve been reading this great book by Vine Deloria, a native activist. I’m always reading something. I’m trying to always read something. I usually have 3 or 4 books I’m trying to read. I should probably narrow it down to 1 [laughs].

There’s access to so many things now, which is really cool. I like a lot of old movies. It’s been fun, with this project, I’ve been making really fun short movies with this director. We’ve been playing around with the record, which is a cool way to pair with the music.

SILY: Will you want to do that for music in the future?

CG: Definitely. It’s been a really gratifying experience channeling creatively into different mediums. I’ve always loved film. It’s nice to be able to imagine something and then see it in that medium and have a great collaborator. The director I work with is very talented, and it always helps to have a good partner. A lot of the music is soundtracks to imaginary films. The imagery is closely connected.

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