Finding Inspiration with Heartgaze
Photography by Michael Salisbury
Having lived in three different countries on top of his already broad travels, Clemente Calandra, known as Heartgaze, has many experiences to pull from. With these as his creative backdrop, the Noble Square resident has a nexus of influences he can channel into his work. As a result, his sound is very transportive. One such song is “ARREGLADITO”, a collaboration with Martín Berríos, which takes you on an 8-bit, emo-hyperpop trip down the stumbling blocks of social media. His latest release, “CHINO, CA,” meanwhile travels from wistful, pixelated vocals over soft piano chords to a punk-trap beat layered under agitated lyrics.
Prior to dropping the single, we sat down with the multi-hyphenate artist to discuss the new song, his creative foundation, and the paradox of social media. Read our Q&A below and stream “CHINO, CA” on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you get your tunes.
Where are you originally from and where do you live in Chicago?
I live in Noble Square, which I feel is one of my favorite areas of Chicago. It’s cute. It’s kind of like Wicker Park, but less expensive.
I’m from Argentina. I lived there for 15 years, so I grew up there. Then, I went to Chile for four years. Then I came to the US, and I’ve been here for two years. It’s been lots of fun.
What kind of sounds are you gravitating towards at this moment?
Right now, I’m working on this mixtape. For this project, I’m gravitating towards electronic sounds a lot. So house beats, drum n’ bass. Like, really harsh beats with shiny and bright melodies. Cute sounds blended with the heavy beats.
I’m also trying to find a lot of visual inspiration right now. My desk right now is the perfect inspiration for me. I have this Roland machine, the 404, which I use to make music. Of course I use it all the time but it’s also a beautiful machine. I have my Evangelion DVD. I don’t even watch anime that much but I love Evangelion. I have these fake Chanel earrings. Finding visual imagery and concepts is a lot of my inspiration right now.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the single you released on December 10th?
It’s a song called CHINO, CA, like the place in California. It’s really old, it’s from January, but it definitely still holds up and it’s one of my favorite songs I’ve done. It’s one of those songs where you don’t know if it should be part of a project or if you just want to put it out as a single because it’s a really cool song. I wanted to close out 2021 with a song but I wasn’t sure what to do. I have a lot of songs but that one, it’s a very melancholic song. It’s very sad in a way but it also has a trap beat so it’s not super sad. I thought it was a good closer for 2021.
It’s a collaboration with my friend Fco. Chandia, who is a Chilean artist. He has always pushed for that song to be somewhere, he really likes it. When I came to [Chicago] and played at Schubas, I opened the show with [this song] and the response was really good. A lot of my upbringing comes out through the song, there are parts where I’m talking as my mom. It has a lot of influences from emo music and nu metal, and the stuff I grew up with.
How do you think your upbringing has translated into the music you make now?
Growing up in Argentina, I was exposed to a lot of Argentine music. You know, tango, rock—certain aspects of those. Growing up, I was super infatuated with US culture. I grew up with punk and nu metal. Bands like Linkin Park. At some point, when I was 12, I discovered rap. Like, Tyler The Creator. He had just put out WOLF. That kind of changed my life. I was super infatuated with the music [in the US] in a way. That infatuation led me to think, “I gotta move to the US at some point.”
When I moved to Chile, I was meeting new artists. It was the end of high school so I was really going out, making music, and trying to meet new people whereas before, it was mostly just myself.
I’m grateful to have been lucky enough to travel a lot in my life. I’ve been to Japan, Italy, and other places because of my mom, who travels a lot for work. When I moved here, I realized how to properly blend all of my cultural influences while keeping a strong root in my upbringing and the stuff in Argentina that I saw. Not even musically but also socially. Even things that people think have nothing to do with [music], like futbol and sports.
When I moved here, I understood my upbringing and I started to make music that was the most fitting to a combination of all my influences in a way, which I’m still kind of developing.
A lot of common themes brought up in your music are feelings of longing and the overall qualms of being young in the era of social media. What do you think are the benefits of exposing this vulnerable side of yourself through your music?
I talk a lot about social media in my music. I have a song coming out soon that’s also kind of about social media. I think in my way of expressing it, what serves me the most in channeling those emotions, is trying to say everything in a way where it’s both cute and negative at the same time. I have this song called ARREGLADITO, which came out in mid-2020, and it’s very cute and positive in terms of sound, but the lyrics are like, “Oh I sit in bed all day, scrolling through Instagram, nothing hits right.” But I wanted it to be cute, I didn’t want it to be some Black Mirror shit.
I think I’m still going with that idea. My writing has always been a little bit of commentary of social media just because it’s something that stresses me out a lot but it’s also something I love, which leaves me feeling very conflicted about it. I think [social media] channels into the music as being cute but also stressful and hard. When ARREGLADITO came out, I had not seen my long-distance partner in a year and a month, because of COVID. I think a lot of longing comes in through that.
How has the pandemic played a role in your creative process?
The pandemic caused a huge shift in my art because when the pandemic started, I was stuck in the US and I couldn’t go back to Argentina or Chile. Right when the pandemic hit, I had a very successful single, SOLICITUDES. That song led to a lot of people, people I really admire, meeting me online. Some people, to this day, I still haven’t met even though I got to go back to Chile and Argentina for a little bit. That was really interesting because all those people I worked with were fully online. I started feeling like an online sensation. Obviously not in a viral aspect but as an online entity. All these people didn’t know me in person but I was still a character in the scene in Chile or Argentina.
That led me to having a sense of hunger, this need of wanting to do more and more. There were two outcomes to that. One is that I’m in Chicago. I’m pushing really hard to do more stuff in this scene. I’ve definitely met a lot of good people here after shows. This stems from a lot of my confidence I gained from working really hard in music during the pandemic. In Chicago, I want to be able to show it in person and not be an online entity.
The other outcome is that now I’m going to go back to Chile and Argentina, but when I go back to Chile–now that everything is opening back up again–we’re going to plan events. The moment that people see me at an event, the whole online entity thing is going to be weird. People are actually going to see me as a person on a stage, which I find interesting. Some people that have only met me online think I’m really short but I’m actually really tall. I’m super excited and nervous.
Aside from music, are you doing anything else to express yourself creatively?
Visual work, for sure. My Spotify is a good portfolio for my visual work. Most of my covers and videos I make myself. Usually, what I do is I’ll tap in a collaborator to do certain things. But, everything kind of stems from my idea or an edit that I’ll do for a picture or some type of concept I have. I’ll usually have collaborators do certain visual aspects and then I’ll edit them myself, so it’s like a little sandwich.
I love everything visual. I love videos, I love clothes. I’m huge into design. That’s for sure something I’m constantly developing. Music is never going to be the only thing. I think a really well-rounded artist is better off if you have a sense of visuals. I think it’s very important, nowadays, to have everything under control in a way–which is really hard, for sure–but I’ve been trying my best to have everything, visuals, music, fashion, in my control.
Did you have a creative foundation growing up?
My dad and my brother are musicians. They never worked in music full-time but they’re very talented and introduced me to a lot of music and concepts that I grew up with.
My mom is just amazing when it comes to her tastes. She loves art, she loves music, she loves everything. She’s not a musician but she has very intricate tastes. I always talk to her and we have these very intense convos about art in general or a certain piece of art or an artist themself. Mainly in visual arts, but that’s her thing. She’s very much in the world of arts in South America. She is very present in museums and all those things, she knows everyone when it comes to visual arts. She taught me a lot about taste just by showing me things, which I’m very grateful for. I think she’s the GOAT. My father and brother taught me a lot about music but my mom gave me taste.
You have a long list of frequent collaborators including Cece Maravilla and Ilmato. What do you think collaboration brings to the music?
All of my collaborators are people I love and who I admire very much. I met Cece through our friend Alex here in Chicago. They are one of my best friends in the world and we just started working a lot and really clicked through collaboration. I’m super used to [collaboration] at this point and working with other people, I don’t remember the last time I dropped a song on my own.
Ilmato, I met online, but I already knew his art because in Chile, he’s a very established visual artist. He’s establishing himself as a musician now too. He was someone I met online who I knew they were doing cool art so I wanted to get in on their world and I knew they wanted to get in on my world. We both appreciate art. I know he appreciates art deeply, he has good taste. That’s kind of how we linked.
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