Julián De La Chica:
Agatha

In my process as a composer—and more broadly, as an experimenter—“everyday life” has always been a central element in how I create. Perhaps it’s because I belong to a generation that has pushed the boundaries of visual language—cinema, television, graphic media—to such high levels of refinement, that image, as a concept and as a form, has become indispensable in my storytelling. I write what I see; therefore, I write what I live. Agatha was born from that very process.

Shortly after arriving in New York, I spent about eight months visiting friends who lived in SoHo. I was new to the city and eager to experience it—its streets, its people, its pulse. We went out a lot, and often I stayed the night on someone’s sofa rather than take the long train ride back to Harlem, where I lived at the time. I didn’t have money for a taxi, and this way, I could extend the night, the adventure.

It was during one of those stays—through a window—that I witnessed the story that became Agatha.

From the living room of my friend's apartment, I began to notice a man in the building across the street. I don’t know who he was, or what he did, but his presence was magnetic—enigmatic. I'm almost certain he knew I was watching him. There was something unspoken in the exchange between our two windows. Something intimate, perhaps even transgressive. Or maybe it was all in my head. A projection. Who could say for sure what was happening?

But Agatha isn’t about certainties. It’s about atmospheres, about longing, mystery, and the blurry line between observation and imagination. It’s about the quiet poetry of the unnoticed, and the stories that unfold when no one thinks they’re being seen.

— Julián De La Chica