Reviews /Interviews /Features of JESUCRISIS

Interview of Jesucrisis & Two Witches just before Spring U.S Tour , Feb. 26 '23:  

https://youtu.be/UyJPEf8RCCQ  (embed below)

https://lagrimasilenciosas.blogspot.com/2022/10/JCrisis.html :

Nice new Interview of Vladi & Lisa of JESUCRISIS published by South American 

BRVXIAS Magazine,  Oct '22-- Translated

It begins by emphasizing that "the bond with Chile has grown despite the distance"... and concludes, "With shows upcoming alongside the Two Witches themselves and the visionaries The Flatfield, close artistic relations with Finland anticipate one more possibility to shorten distances and wisdom with the sinister gothic/ deathrock of these southern lands at the end of the world...."

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JESUCRISIS ~The bond with Chile has grown despite distance

After moving and settling in Pittsburgh, Vladi continues his creations with JESUCRISIS and a new stage of life with Lisa, who becomes an important part of this new process of change, a new pillar for the band. Thus, after a busy year, and despite the sanitary restrictions due to the Pandemic, having played with Valor and his band Christian Death, and being in full presentation of their new work Archaic Fires To Awaken Being, this interview comes to us for catch up on creative matters in the Northlands, where they have stayed connected despite distances, and time.

Tell me Vladi, when do you decide to leave Chile? And what of Jesuscrisis during this time.?

Vladi - It wasn't something that I said to musicians I was working with at the time—‘come on, I'm leaving and that's it.  I rehearsed with those I was playing with still, I recorded and uploaded to the networks from my ruka in La Florida in Chile… We had a great time, I participated in compilations of Chilean friends , Peruvian and Russian, compilations that traveled the world and reached the ears of Lisa in the USA. By 2017 I began to collaborate with her on some singles from a distance (me from Chile and she from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.). Then Lisa visited Chile in August 2017 [ and even played with current band members]… and recorded together.  Then in December 2017 I arrived in Pittsburgh where we continued the recordings, we started a relationship then we got married and I settled in Pittsburgh.  During this time Jesucrisis recorded the album “archaic fires to awaken being” in home studio, we began to delve into the audiovisual with some video clips that can be seen on the youtube channel, some performances etc.

Lisa - We embarked on a single together, Serpiente de Nuit, while we were still living apart. I brought equipment and recorded the bass and vocals in Santiago for this composition of mine that I started a year earlier, actually. It was released even before Vladimir arrived in the US, November 2017, around the time I created a bandcamp page to have a full discography established. Additionally, in the years since Vladi arriving in the United States, I established a web presence for Jesucrisis (along with my own long-standing website (since 2005, where original music, books and performance pieces are): www.lisamilesviolin.com/jesucrisis

Our Jesucrisis Official channel has also come to life on YouTube, where playlists are uniquely organized to showcase performances, official videos, older videos, and various works, like the mini-documentary we made of Ravens Moreland, the longtime mainstay of LA Punk.

You live now in Pittsburgh?  How have you adapted to this change? Was it difficult at the beginning for Jesucrisis?

Vladi - Now I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, the adaptation was possible with many hours of studying English, studying for local technical licenses, adaptation to the bureaucracy around here, rehearsals and concerts, etc., Jesucrisis does not get stuck culturally, but continued as if anywhere in the world, trying to make interesting songs and enjoying the process.

Is there a more fluid connection there to old school Post-Punk and American Goth?  Where is the scene right now, for young bands?

Vladi - I think so, there was always a fluid connection between those styles, from what I see.  In California, in Los Angeles, there is fully a lot of mixture of races in the bands and the public, bands more veteran and emblematic… and younger people in an event… It is possible to see several generations present; I think that any young band with a record and some audiovisual material can promote and show their work in each city, which has its uniqueness.

You have taken the band with you, is this final? Despite the time and distance, there is a link with Chile and the former members of Jesucrisis?

Vladi - Many musicians have passed through Jesucrisis who have left their legacy in some way, the project travels with me…The link with some former members continues, some continue in music, others continue to be linked in another way. The bond with Chile has grown despite the distance, because it has a very good scene with very interesting bands.  I know and am friends with various bands from there and I am constantly discovering new projects, in addition to the fact that various musicians collaborate with Jesucrisis from there— be it technical support or recordings of instruments for our rhythmic bases, audiovisually, etc.

Tell me about what the night life was like there before the pandemic, and how it is now... Has it returned to normal these days?

Lisa - Pittsburgh was once the scene of a very vibrant punk and post-punk underground, in the 1980s and early-mid 1990s, until the scene became more scattered and displaced. Social media was just around the corner and that was the death knell for old school underground music, of which I am one. Of course, independent art and music survives here to this day, but in a way relatively disconnected from the early punk and post-punk musicians who used to revolve around WRCT (Radio Carnegie Tech underground radio), dive bars like the Electric Banana that were infamous here, even 90s clubs like Metropol that carried the post punk and new wave tradition for a while.  So, in the 2000s, the people who play music in Pittsburgh are connected to the more global scene of bands trying to tour and others to visit this city on the way to other cities … with the same challenges presented for them to also feel some success as all artists age-old. All in all, independent musicians and artists remain like-minded progressives, and the broader art scene is an embrace of both old and new punks.

Vladi - Before the pandemic, well, we were at several interesting events, constant movement of bands and concerts. Then everything decreased due to the pandemic where there were many restrictions on flights, capacity, etc..  [Jesucrisis just got home from their LA tour when all hell broke loose, March 2020].  In addition there were so many infected and dead people, unfortunately some acquaintances and friends of mine from Chile died.  Now I have seen the concert calendars and the flow is already being activated of bands on tour, of more famous bands and others more underground. Some time ago we played in a new venue that is a record store and gig room, Government Center, near our house and we opened for Christian Death at the Hard Rock café on May 26, 2022, where we also took the opportunity to do an interview with Valor, that could be seen on our youtube channel.https://youtu.be/2vU-b-YEnVs

Vladi - Also, this was the same time when there was also a coup d'état in Bolivia, Macri from Argentina sent weapons to the coup plotters… In Brazil the far-right Bolsonaro, etc, as a kind of another Condor operation in South America… Piñera in the style of Pinochet declares war on the Chilean people, … very strong things were happening.  try to inform myself as much as I can about the geopolitical situation in South America and I followed the social unrest in Chile very closely.  I felt very helpless for not being able to have been there as my friends were on the front line, so we began to record some songs with the theme of the outbreak.  In several cities in the USA and Europe there were also outbreaks of social outbursts… The name of the album has reference to the explosion, as well as the songs Killer cheat, Dr Shock,... with lyrics in English so that the Anglo public would get the message.

Currently who makes up the band in a stable way, and will this vary over time?  What about Lisa’s background?

Vladi - Vladimir Muñoz (bass, vocals and compositions) Lisa Miles (electric violin). From Europe we have had collaborate guest guitarists “Dr. J Ravine” (The Flatfield, Finland) and Ger Egan (Berlin based, vocalist w/ 90’s This Burning Effigy, October Burns Black).  From South American guests Umbrio on guitar and drums (Absencia, from Santiago), Max Vdh on guitar & programming (Post Machinery Environment, Argentina), Jose Unanue from Chile contributed keys on one remake of an older song on the album.

Lisa - In Pittsburgh, I played in folk-punk band The Feral Family and much darker band Black Light Discipline, as well as guesting live and in the studio with numerous bands that were part of the punk and post-punk scene.  (In addition there were collaborations with artists from film, dance, theater and literature). Since playing solely electrically since 2015, I've collaborated with Darker bands— Come With Reverse (studio releases and playing live in Greece), The Flatfield, Two Witches, This Burning Effigy's Ger Egan, among others, including IKon's upcoming side project Crimes of Passion and another surprise iconic goth band TBA.  I am also a solo artist, with electric violin compositions, multi-layered and often, again, mixed with literary and other art forms.

How has it been possible to install Jesucrisis outside Chile, and revive the recordings again.  Is the band supported by any label, or other bands?

Lisa - The recordings were revived by the need to first make backing tracks that would be the basis for a new band that was a duo— with me covering guitar and old keyboard parts on the electric violin.

Rehearsals followed, as well as incorporating in the new songs: the exclusive singles and then the full material from the new album.

We presented Jesucrisis as a duo for the first time on our return to Santiago post-green card of Vladi, when we could travel freely, as well as in Lima, presented by Cueva de Murcielagos.

Vladi - We are not in a label, we handcraft our music and videos etc..  And we do have constant support from friendly bands, whether from North America, South America and Europe … like a distant tribe hahaha.

Tell me about the Archaic Fires To Awaken Being album. What meaning does this work have for Jesuscrisis?

Vladi - It is a declaration of principles, a defined position before society, trying to get out of the doctrines and the imposed matrix of religion and conservatism.  The work is often about trying to free oneself from dogmas and indoctrination through our music.  For me it was an exploration and discovery, on the album we explore different cultures, the Native Americans, the ancient Slavic culture, etc., and also in songs we talk about politics and the advances of the far right in the world and South America— as the name of the album says ( archaic fires to awaken the being) the contained energy released.

The Archaic Fires To Awaken Being album cover is very particular, what does such an image point to, is there a message behind it?

Vladi-Thank you, we made the image with a very talented designer friend from Chile, Roberto Mazuela, Mazuela Workshop, that's the name of his facebook page where you can see his graphics and sculptures. The natives of different cultures used fire to clear dead and dying plants, allowing new ones to sprout.  This was beneficial for them and the spirit of wildlife they hunted… Fire in the original peoples is energy, expanded body, representative of the sun that it is transformed into food (kitchen) and the spirit (medicine) because fire heals, purifies and transforms.  In the drawing on the cover you can see a ritual and playful fire, of catharsis… Like a community fire around the stove, the bonfire is a true space of communication, where a collective and shared sense of life is shared. Fire is the thought of ancient man listening to the heart of life in everything that exists. For example, the Mayan people literally read fire and through that reading knowledge is produced.  It is also human passion, the commitment to affectivity, heart, and remembering the ancient past.

During this release period of Archaic Fires To Awaken Being, the catastrophe of the Pandemic came. How it has affected you in the promotion and arrival of the album.

It didn't affect us much, we published the album online and it was sold through the bandcamp account and physically it was sold to different parts of the world.  And shortly before the pandemic, we managed to present the album live on a tour of California, Los Angeles.  Then when the virus broke out we took advantage of the time for audiovisual work of the songs, etc., and simply disconnected from the scene because this project is not in any competition with anything.  We go at our own pace… personally the pandemic affected me more for the loss of friends and acquaintances.

At the Spanish-speaking level and in particular the Latin community, how is the acceptance of your art today?

Vladi - At the beginning of the project [two decades ago] I had no intention other than to try to make a demo and to be able to participate in the activities and concerts of the countercultural movement of the neighborhoods of the most popular side of Santiago… to try to contribute with a post punk / gothic rock project to the most marginalized classes of Chilean society.  For a long time Jesucrisis participated in many of those events, then the project began to become better known in the Chilean and Peruvian scene little by little.  In Chilean and South American compilations, in the community Latin, I find that acceptance is much more than I expected.  It has been something enriching and magical… meeting different musicians, producers, death rockers… The people and places of different parts of South America has been something very rewarding.

For example, we recently played in Chile and Argentina, and I performed solo on June 26, 2022 opening for 8 Bolas, Sudor Obrero and Estorbos, in the Perro Negro space. On July 1 we played with the bands Absencia, Central, KNTI, and Colectivo No at Subterráneo Records, then we traveled to Argentina, Buenos Aires, where we played on July 9 presented at a Gothic BA event.  We had really rewarding experiences in those places. .

Lisa - We were lucky enough to be able to do what most bands couldn't do in 2020: play in Los Angeles. In February of that year, just about a month after the release of Archaic Fires, we had the great pleasure of touring and being with Bruce “Ravens” Moreland, and even a show with Rikk Agnew. (In fact, we were lucky enough to have Rikk and Gitane Demone visit our house the previous summer when they stopped by Pgh and the LA tour plans were taking shape.) Although we felt after that that the Los Angeles tour was the penultimate for us, ha… we find ourselves always motivated to do unique and independent things as a band, always independent (no label) and in charge of our intentions and direction. (Coming home from Los Angeles, the Pandemic didn't hold us back, as we needed a break from so much activity as a band and a couple, with immigration, establishing the electric VMO business, and more being overload). We started right in at first moment to begin the documentary of Ravens.  And in the fall of 2020, I am so glad Vladi pushed us to do live performances in the studio at home, and we recorded four, three very well done and well received.  

And now, we're in a really great place for 2022-23.  You see, the Lumous Gothic Festival had invited us to perform in the summer of 2020, but the pandemic killed that. Jyrki and Marko from Two Witches liked our work and in fact I have even created tracks for three Finnish bands including Two Witches.  As with the Los Angeles tour, it was time to set the intention to go to Finland together and even have compadres from Finland tour with us here on  the East Coast?

Vladi, is there anything that Jesucrisis would like to add to this interview?

Vladi - Just many thanks to Bruxias fanzine for your valuable work and I would like to add the dates of our next presentations confirmed so far… 4 dates in Finland and 5 U.S., all found on our website and FB page…

So at the end of this interview that Lisa and Vladi responded to us, we can confirm that Jesucrisis is here for a while, with this year's end moving and the new period is entering, with shows alongside the Two Witches themselves and the visionaries The Flatfield.  Close artistic relations with Finland anticipate one more possibility to shorten distances and wisdom with the sinister rock of these southern lands at the end of the world…

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Erba Della Strega Mag. (Jan. 5, 2020) on ARCHAIC FIRES album:

English translation:
Its the right time for "Archaic Fires To Awaken Being," the first full-length of JESUCRISIS. The work, in fact, officially closes the "Chilean period" of the band - which runs from 2001 to 2017 and characterized by the more traditional "Gothic-Latin" and here opening the "United States period." Here the influence of violinist and mandolin player Lisa Miles comes out, working hand-in-hand with fellow composer Vladimir Munoz and making the work of the reviewer more complicated. The violin, and in some cases the mandolin (!), are not played as a mere instrument of "accompaniment," a sort of orchestral and classic touch to the melody - we think of Bob Loveday in Eden House - but instead is s a focal part of the musical architecture. The album, dedicated to all peoples who are fighting for their rights, although it has a “slightly fluctuating” sound production quality, has many interesting ideas in its DNA. Listening to "Serpiente De Nuit", "Sister Moon" or the exclusive single "Rose of the Monolith," obscure gothic, dark folk - let's remember what the devil's favorite instrument is - combined with a surreal deathrock and avant-garde mood. Knowing the Gothic pedigree of the readers of this magazine, I can frame the original Jesucrisis sound between Requiem In White / Mors Syphilitica and Swan Death with a touch of the more ethnic Engelsstaub without risking not being understood. Out from January 6 in limited physical version.

"The album feels good, masterful..." EDS blog w/ link to Rose of the Monolith video 

GUTS OF DARKNESS music mag, Dec. '19

     "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know, deathrock can't be renewed; there is the Los Angeles school, the Hispanic (including Mexico), possibly the more punk aspect typical of the Portland region (and many other very pretty corners of the world)… Blah, blah, there is always smart formations which slip between these hasty and reducing categorizations, like Jesucrisis for example. Would you like to listen to a deathrock version of Heroes del Silencio? It’s possible with them. It must be said that the genesis of the combo is not trivial who will see the Chilean musician Vladimir Munoz leave his country and settle in the USA to work with his partner, the violinist Lisa Miles (also gifted with the mandolin, unusual instrument of the style and yet... what explains the group's special bent?... [more, see sidebar]

Skullgirdle VIDEO Interview of Vladimir & Lisa, Aug 2019

Terra Relicta  Feature on  the Band & Video Premiere of "Rose of the Monolith" 

Nota Negra web magazine Interview w/ Vladimir Munoz, Dec. 2018 (English here, below)

April '18 Frecuencia Nebular Video Feature on Vladimir, Lisa & "Serpiente de Nuit"

Dec 2017 "Serpiente de Nuit"/ Feature on Lisa & Vladimir's work on Terra Relicta

Gothic-Rock.com Feature on Serpiente de Nuit, Nov. 2017  (Foto & excerpts below; orig. no longer available)

Interview w/Chilean Goth Rock Band Jesucrisis by Oscar Flores of Al Lado Del Farol, 12 Agosto 2015 (English here, below)

🕸️  Spotlight ~ Excellent Review of the Jesucrisis EP:  Gothic-Rock.com (orig. no longer avail)  by Daniel Olvera August 2015:

       I’m really glad with the high quality release from this remarkable Latin-American band. They are Jesucrisis from Chile, and their music is a perfectly balanced combination of Death rock and Gothic Rock; the result is an exciting sound which is really dark, very exciting, and well crafted.

       This EP was made by real musicians with remarkable skills: The song writing and the execution are flawless, thus they have created this very enjoyable fusion of the gloomy excitement of Death Rock, and the elegant and sophisticated harmonies of the finest guitar-oriented Gothic Rock, spiced with those ominous keyboards. They sound likeChristian Death meets Septima Sima, and this is good…really good indeed!

       We can appreciate other influences in their music, but they have drawn a very distinctive style at the end. This E.P. was released almost two years ago and is really worth to have a listen.  “Cenizas” is pretty solid Gothic Rock; the combination of the strong-paced rhythm, fluent melody, and the influence of Rozz Williams in the vocal harmonies, is simply captivating. “Espectros” is vertiginous Death Rock; yes, this is true Death Rock of the New Millennium, and it is a real sucker punch right in the face of those mediocre, self-proclaimed “Death Rock “poser bands. This is real music!
      “Necrologia Del Amor” has a ghostly waltz-paced rhythm; this is another track with some influence of Rozz Williams, and this is pretty well done. This song is very classy indeed. “Empireo Cismatico” is superb Post Punk-Gothic, flawlessly executed. And finally…The best! “Sangre Y Piel” is fascinating Gothic – Death Rock; they have displayed again their dominant mastery while combining both music styles.

       Jesucrisis is an honest band, pose free, and they are one of the best Latin American bands because they are very talented artists; and they have real dark hearts. If you like Death Rock and Gothic Rock, don’t miss this one, it is a stunning release.   ► by Daniel Olvera