The 'El Tiny' Questionnaire: Girl Ultra

To celebrate Alt.Latino's "El Tiny" takeover of NPR's Tiny Desk series, we asked a few of the artists contributing performances to answer our "El Tiny" questionnaire. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Artist Name: Girl Ultra

Country(s) of Origin: Mexico

Genre(s): R&B/Soul

Any musician, living or dead, who would you invite over for a cafecito? I would love to mix and match some personalities. And if I do Mexican personalities, I would have a cafecito with Ely Guerra. I feel like she's like such a complete and complex artist. I would love to chat with her. And maybe [someone from Época de Oro], from old movies. Maybe María Félix or somebody complex like that.

One album that always reminds you of home: An album that always reminds me of home might be like any kind of radio pop from the 2000s. Sin Bandera reminds me of my mom playing the radio. Or [The Mission: Music From The Motion Picture] by Ennio Morricone. My dad always plays [that] and it always reminds me of him cooking in the morning.

If I weren't a musician, I'd be a(n) ____. I will be cooking. 100%. I would love to have a [bakery]. Like a small [bakery] in the woods. That would be my retirement plan or my plan B.

Dream place to tour: I would love to go to Asia. Maybe touring Japan. South Korea. Any place where there's languages that I don't speak. That's very intriguing to me, to get to know cultures and all these differences.

What are you listening to right now? I'm listening a lot to Ethel Cain, and in español all I'm listening to is this friend of mine who's called Sonic Emerson. It's a very underground, shoegaze thing.

Is there a part of your creative process — a piece of gear, a tool, a technique — that you've adopted recently? How has it impacted your art? I don't consider myself a guitar player, but recently I've been getting to know the instrument and making it part of my music and my artistic persona and the show. I started composing, just me and the guitar, from scratch. I feel like an instrument becomes like another limb in your body. I just like feeling that, toward guitar, and I'm understanding what it means to me and for composition.

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