Shoegaze from Colombia: Encarta 98 Are Coming of Age on Their New LP .𖥔 ݁ ˖lucero˖ ݁ 𖥔.

In late 2023, Encarta 98 were preparing to call it quits. Their previous guitarist had just departed, leaving the Bogotá-based outfit adrift and questioning their future. Then came the kind of lifeline most independent bands only ever dream about: after The Twilight Sad cancelled their tour, Robert Smith personally selected Encarta 98 to open for The Cure and Slowdive. The experience saved the band and completely changed their direction, with Slowdive's live set directly inspiring the early framework for their brilliant new album, .𖥔 ݁ ˖lucero˖ ݁ 𖥔.

Encarta 98 were moving into their thirties, watching friendships and family change, saying goodbye to parts of the lives they had known in their twenties and trying to make sense of loss without getting trapped inside it. “.𖥔 ݁ ˖lucero˖ ݁ 𖥔. feels nostalgic,” they tell us, “but there’s also something bright that brings hope.” Encarta 98 grew out of Bogotá’s independent scene, first playing around with a beach-punk sound before discovering DIIV, Whirr, My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive; lucero takes those influences further and reflectins the city around them — its cold weather, enormous Andean mountains, crowded middle-class neighborhoods, and the strange energy of living in a city of millions. 

It is also their first record to feel fully realised in the studio. For a band who grew up in Colombia, where producing high-quality music could mean paying for expensive studio time, .𖥔 ݁ ˖lucero˖ ݁ 𖥔. represents a long-awaited move into hi-fi territory, with better drums, equipment and more room to experiment. The result is an album about nostalgia that refuses to dwell on the past — a record that explores grief, memory and farewell, but is also concerned with gratitude, friendship and the potential for new beginnings.

The city has influenced us a lot. The middle-class neighborhoods where almost all of us live, the cold, the huge mountains of the Cordillera de Los Andes, and simply living in such a big, beautiful, and chaotic city of 8 million people have definitely shaped the way we live and the way we make music.

How did the four of you meet, and how did Encarta 98 come together?

Encarta originally came together after a conversation on a street in Bogotá sometime around 2015, when a few friends and acquaintances expressed an interest in starting a band. However, David (our guitarist) is the only one from that original group who is still in the band today. At first, the idea was to make music similar to what bands like FIDLAR and Wavves were doing, but about a year in, we decided to change direction as we started discovering bands like Whirr, DIIV, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and The Jesus and Mary Chain. At the time, shoegaze was still relatively unknown in Colombia, so we found it exciting to be among the first people in the country exploring sounds closer to dream pop and shoegaze. To be honest, the only Colombian reference we had back then was an album by a solo project from Medellín called Niño Naranja.

Over time, as some members left the band, we met Sebastián, who played drums in several projects ranging from cumbia to jazz. Later, when our previous vocalist left the country, Sebastián introduced us to Mapa, whom he knew from the university's music faculty. Some time after that, Satán (Satis) joined to replace our other guitarist. We knew him through one of David’s friends, as well as from his work as the bassist of another indie band from Bogotá. Finally, when we were looking for a new bass player, Satis introduced us to Martín (Techo), who is originally from Quito, Ecuador, but is now based here in Bogotá. Despite having gone through so many lineup changes over a relatively short period, it has been easy for us not only to understand each other and create music in a relaxed way, but also to build genuine friendships among ourselves.

Where does the name Encarta 98 come from? What does it mean to you now, and has its meaning changed over time?

The name Encarta 98 actually came from a time when the whole vaporwave aesthetic was becoming really popular, both visually and musically. We picked the name because, at the time, we just thought it was funny. There wasn’t any deeper meaning behind it, and honestly, we never even thought it would stick—it was supposed to be a temporary name. But people seemed to find it funny, and at the same time, it brought back a lot of nostalgia for many of them, since Encarta was this virtual encyclopedia that a lot of us grew up using as kids.

For readers who may not know much about Colombia’s music scene, how would you describe the country’s underground today? Are there particular cities, venues or communities that have been important to you?

Colombia has an incredibly rich and diverse musical landscape. The underground scene is home to all kinds of sounds, from punk and metal to cumbia. There’s a lot to explore, especially in Bogotá. The capital is home to many independent bands across all kinds of genres, and there are some really great festivals for pretty much every taste. The city government organizes events like Festival Centro, Rock al Parque, Jazz al Parque, and Hip Hop al Parque, to name a few, and there are also independent festivals like Estéreo Picnic, Festival Cordillera, and Baum Festival.

Unfortunately, we feel that everything connected to the music industry is becoming increasingly centralized around the country’s biggest cities. At the same time, we’re sure there’s a huge musical universe waiting to be discovered in smaller cities and towns.

As for shoegaze, there isn’t a strong or well-established scene yet. That said, we’ve been seeing new projects emerge from younger generations, and they’re starting to connect with each other and build a more specific community. The genre has always found its way through other spaces and scenes, especially emo and indie, so it’s interesting to see people coming together and giving it a space of its own. A few bands currently exploring shoegaze include Hipsum, Danta, Primaveras Perdidas, and Nico Chamber.

There are so many different directions you could have taken musically. What first drew you to shoegaze, and what was it about the genre that felt right for Encarta 98?

It was kind of weird, because ten years ago, when we were initially making music with a beach punk vibe, we managed to write quite a few songs that we thought we were going to record. But at some point, we just didn’t know what else to write or how to move forward. Maybe Oshin by DIIV was the turning point that made us want to move toward something more defined. We were discovering and falling in love with all these characteristic elements of shoegaze: extremely loud, heavily reverberated guitars contrasted with sweet vocals and melodies. It was an unexpected combination, but somehow it just fit perfectly with our emotional world.

We also had some limitations when it came to guitar effects, which made it harder to approach the sound we wanted in a direct way. Maybe that’s why our first EP, E://98 (2018), feels closer to noise pop. Over time, after listening to more shoegaze, dream pop, ambient, and other kinds of music, we started to understand much better what we wanted to do with Lo Que Extrañas Ya No Existe (2021).

For our new album, .𖥔 ݁ ˖lucero˖ ݁ 𖥔., we basically just let ourselves go with whatever each of us understands as shoegaze, while also paying attention to what’s been happening musically within the genre lately. That allowed us to take inspiration from newer bands like Cashier, Bleary Eyed, terraplana, and Sword II, as well as from the recent work of Slow Crush, DIIV, and Whirr.

You shared the stage with The Cure and Slowdive in 2023. How did those opportunities come about, and what do you remember most vividly about those shows?

That was probably the most amazing experience we’ve ever had as a band. What makes it even more special is that we were going through a really difficult time back then. The band was actually close to breaking up because our previous guitarist had just left. Then we found out there was a possibility that we could play the show, and we told Satis, who is now our current guitarist, about it. At first, we were one of several bands being considered to open the show after The Twilight Sad canceled their tour. As far as we know, Robert Smith was the one who ultimately chose us to open the concert.

That day was crazy. We were incredibly excited and happy, but also really anxious and a little scared. It was going to be the biggest stage we had ever played. To make things even more difficult, we didn’t get a soundcheck because the setup for both bands was huge and there was very little time. That put us under a lot of pressure. When it was finally time to play, a lot of external things that were completely out of our control weren’t working properly. We couldn’t hear ourselves very well on stage, and we ended up playing while feeling extremely anxious. But in the end, we were just incredibly happy to have had that opportunity, and especially to be part of an event alongside bands that had been such a huge part of our adolescence and remain a major influence on us.

After the show, we went back to our dressing room and Robert Smith was there waiting to meet us. We were lucky enough to talk with him for a while. We were honestly in shock—we never expected that at all. It was also really nice to discover that he is such a warm and down-to-earth person.

In the end, he invited us to watch The Cure’s show from the VIP box, where we met the guys from Slowdive. We got to hang out and talk with them for quite a while, took some photos, got some autographs, and even had a cigarette with Neil. We gave them the last few T-shirts we had with us, and they were incredibly kind to us.

Best day ever.

You have a new album coming out. When did you first realize that these songs were becoming a new Encarta 98 record rather than simply a collection of new ideas?

We think the idea of making another album had been there from the beginning. A few months earlier, we had actually considered ending the band, so having the chance to play alongside The Cure and Slowdive gave us massive motivation not to give up. We started working with two ideas that Sebastián, our drummer, had been keeping around, along with an early version of “Destello” that Satis came up with after seeing Slowdive live.

It was probably around the middle of the demo-writing process that we started to realize the things we all had in common musically, as well as some emotional and thematic connections between the songs. A lot of them revolved around grief, goodbyes, memory, and melancholy. Later on, some more “optimistic” ideas started to come in, about lighter and more beautiful kinds of love.

Where did you record the album, and what was the atmosphere like during those sessions? Was the recording process very different from your previous releases?

The process of writing and recording this new album was very different from what we did with Lo Que Extrañas Ya No Existe. Most of the songs on that album were written in rehearsal rooms, where we had limited time to work. We then recorded them with just a microphone and an amplifier in our former vocalist's bedroom.

By contrast, .𖥔 ݁ ˖lucero˖ ݁ 𖥔. was born in our drummer Sebastián’s bedroom. We would get together once a week for several hours—many hours, haha—and write directly in Ableton Live. Everything felt very intimate. There were five of us in a small room with a bed, a desk, guitars, a bass, pedals, and five cups of coffee. Sometimes it could feel a little claustrophobic, but at the same time, it made us dive much deeper into the creative process.

Eventually, we realized that the writing process could take many more months than we had expected, so we decided to start recording the demos that were already more developed. That’s when we discovered Sama Estudios, a studio located in a rural municipality near Bogotá. We recorded the drums for the first four songs we had written there, along with Mapa’s vocals on “Mala Memoria,” our collaboration with Adiós Cometa. It was a little trip that made us feel like our songs were finally becoming real.

Not long after that, Satis started his own studio with some friends called Discos Records, and we recorded the rest of the album there. This gave us the chance to work at a much more relaxed pace, without the same time constraints. Unlike with our previous album, we also had access to better equipment—computers, microphones, amplifiers, plugins—and, most importantly, the freedom to try things out and experiment with different ideas as they came to us.

What was happening around you while you were making this album? Were there particular places, experiences, relationships or events that found their way into the music?

All of us were entering our thirties—or at least moving away from our twenties—and that transition was a real game-changer in our lives. We were experiencing losses among family and friends, which made us nostalgic for the times we had in our twenties. That's why we often talk about saying goodbye to things with a nostalgic tone. But at the same time, finding each other makes us think in a more optimistic way; thanks to everything we've been through, we've learned to receive the present with gratitude. We think that's why even lucero feels nostalgic—there's power in it, but also something bright that brings hope.

Does the new album feel like a continuation of what Encarta 98 has already done, or does it represent a turning point for the band?

It definitely represents a crucial moment for the band, especially because the group has changed so much since the release of our first album. Not only has it been five years, but several members have also left and been replaced by people with different experiences and interests. In that sense, this almost feels like another first album for us. Even though it inherits a certain sound from what came before and we’re still keeping those older songs alive, a completely different lineup came together to create this second record.

Was there anything you wanted to do on this record that you hadn't been able to achieve before—sonically, emotionally or as a band?

Writing songs as a five-piece isn't something that always happens in a band; sometimes it's two members, or even just one. We're very proud to have written everything closely together this time. lucero is a record that, for Encarta 98, means entering a hi-fi world that was once limited for us. During the 2000s in Colombia, if you wanted to sound good, you had to rent a very expensive studio. Now, we were able to record in a proper studio—especially the drums—and use quality tools to give everything else a truly hi-fi sound. On the emotional side, it was really beautiful to be honest and visceral while all of us were going through a mutual feeling: saying goodbye to many things. We were able to connect good ideas, and for us, that's something very valuable.

What role does your environment in Colombia play in the way Encarta 98 sounds? Are there things about the landscape, climate, cities or everyday life there that inevitably find their way into the music?

The city has influenced us a lot. The middle-class neighborhoods where almost all of us live, the cold, the huge mountains of the Cordillera de Los Andes, and simply living in such a big, beautiful, and chaotic city of 8 million people have definitely shaped the way we live and the way we make music.

We’re five Latin Americans living in a cool-to-cold climate, in a multicultural city where many different ways of seeing the world come together. The five of us have shared many experiences and similar contexts, which has allowed us to connect through the way we experience things and see life. We have very similar concerns and interests, and that common ground naturally finds its way into the music we make.

Is there one song on the new album that feels like the key to understanding the whole record? Why that song?

It's hard to say, but maybe "Nunca Pudimos Decirnos Adiós" is one of the songs that best represents the whole album. It captures the sonic vision of what we wanted to achieve throughout the entire record. It's a song that has dreamy verses but also loud, distorted guitars in the intro and chorus. It merges both the most atmospheric and the most aggressive parts of what we were feeling during the recording process. It also talks about not being able to say goodbye to someone who is gone, which is powerful yet nostalgic at the same time.

When listeners finish the new album, what do you hope stays with them—a particular image, feeling, memory or atmosphere?

We hope the album can create a space for inspiration—whether that means dreaming, falling in love, dancing, singing loudly in your room, picking up a guitar, writing a poem, or writing to a friend. We want it to remind you of good moments with friends and make you more sensitive to the world, so that gestures of kindness and action toward others can emerge.

We believe the record is filled with nostalgia because we understand that the world is filled with sad things, but there is also hope. Nostalgia can be an interesting creative engine. That's why we don't want to just stop at nostalgia; we want it to have a positive impact on the world. Art is a good action, and we want this album to inspire people not just to make more art, but to offer genuine gestures of love and affection.