Vida Vella on His Album ‘Panorama,’ Returning to León

Luis Gabriel Illades had been making music in English, including as a drummer for Pansy Division and Avengers, for nearly 30 years. Through his work in the background, he had dabbled with work in Spanish on his own, but had never found the ideal moment to put it out. But then, came Panorama, which he says began with “a series of sparks.”

The biggest of them arrived when his friend Steve Albini unexpectedly shared that his intern had started a studio — inspired aesthetically by Albini’s own — in Leon, Guanajuato in Mexico. Coincidentally, that’s the city in Mexico where Illades and his family are originally from.  “It opened a connection, whether real or imagined, between what I built in the United States and bringing it back to the town, literally, where my family is from,” he tells Rolling Stone. “And from there, the inertia grew.”

What was born from that moment, and return to León, was Panorama, a ten-track LP Illades released Friday under the name Vida Vella, a play on “vida bella,” or “beautiful life.” The excellent debut project is a stark departure from the punk sounds of his past and instead taps into introspective, psychedelic rock in both English and Spanish.

“My dream is for people to be able to see themselves in it,” he says of the album. “There are universal themes like fear of apocalypse, that we’re all having right now. And asking questions about what you put your faith in, who’s gonna save you? It’s about revealing yourself romantically, spiritually, and it’s about love.”

Lyrically, the music explores the musician’s idea of cultura fronteriza, or border culture, which applies to both where he lives half the time (Tijuana), and his existence as an LGBTQ, Mexican American person. “Are you Mexican? Are you American? If you’re queer, are you masculine? What rules have we been given about what it means to be a man, what it means to be a Mexican?” he says.

For the project, Illades brought in musicians from the United States —  Camper Van Beethoven and Anohni and the Johnsons among them — that he had worked with over the years, but also the State Band of Guanajuato, which he connected with in Leon. “We created this orchestral feel,” he says. “It’s cinematic depth. They didn’t necessarily speak the same language, but we made the album of a lifetime for me.”

There’s “El Chico Francés” about a “dalliance with a French tourist,” tapping into those feelings of “adolescent infatuation.” “None of it is ideological statements,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be with a fist raised.” The song “Nacemos” was inspired by his day job as a psychotherapist, exploring the struggles of love he witnessed among his patients and friends around him during the pandemic. “How do you rebuild an intimate and sensual space with somebody and let them in?” he questions on the song. “It’s rolling the dice and revealing yourself. And that’s really scary.”

The album was released under Illades’ record label Beso y Abrazo Records, where he hopes to support some emerging bands he’s met in Mexico and allow their music to be listened to by American consumers. “The distribution system in Mexico is so challenging,” he says. “My plan is to go down to Mexico with suitcases full of records and start in stores like Mexico City, Tijuana and Guadalajara, and start these hubs.” With Panorama, Beso y Abrazo is just at the beginning.