Can you define Mallorcan songs, tonades, for our readers?

The tonades are the songs that peasants sang while working in the fields. They were sung a cappella, because their hands were occupied with work, and they spoke about the work being done at that moment: harvesting olives, picking figs, reaping, making oil, etc.

Good singers were sought-after workers. [They] could set a good rhythm for the group to follow, and guarantee that everyone would produce at the same level by following that rhythm.

How did you encounter the Mallorcan songs interpreted on your album?

There are three folk songs on the album. I found the opener, ‘Que M’abrasava’, in Alan Lomax’s archive from his 1952 visit to Mallorca. It’s not a tonada, but a song of ‘desperate love’. The ‘Tonada de Segar’ (Tonada of Reaping) is one I have heard in family settings since I was very young. The third one, which closes the album, is ‘Tonada de Collir Figues’ (Tonada of Fig Harvesting). Antònia Mussola, the best folk singer in Mallorca, taught it to me.

It’s quite hard to distinguish the album’s originals from its folk songs. I didn’t realise my songs were so closely related to Mallorcan folk songs until I finished Miramar. My mental library is filled with folk songs that have become ingrained in my subconscious. 

How did the making of Sempre Dijous, the documentary about you and Mallorcan music, come about?

I knew Jaume Ripoll, the founder of FILMIN, and told him my idea of going to listen to older people in Mallorca sing me the tonades they remembered from the fields. At that dinner, there was also Joan Porcel, a documentary director and music enthusiast. A few days later, Joan met me to express his interest in the documentary, and FILMIN agreed to produce it. It was a very intense experience; I was sharing very personal things… I am happy to have done it.

INTERVIEW BY EMMA RYCROFT

Miramar is out now on La Castanya. Links to buy/listen at linktr.ee/julia_colom