Retratos de Heroína & tokkan

Apr 15

The language of screamo is universal. You can both hear and feel the emotions being forced out of the lungs and throats of vocalists in the genre, and while the lyrics in the genre span many topics (and a full emotional spectrum), it’s rare that anyone’s shredding their vocals chords with poetic lyrics of joy.

What does being me joy, however, is hearing two bands from two very different parts of our world come together through borders and (potential) language barriers to produce one hell of a split in the universal love language known as screamo.

Retratos de Heroína are from Punta Arenas, Chile (a small city located in the southernmost part of the country) and tokkan are from Hokkaido, Japan, (located specifically in Muroran). Retratos de Heroína bring elements of sass and what I can best describe as “final boss battle riffs” to their metallic screamo sound, and it’s always a pleasure to hear the creativity of this project continue to blossom with each release. As a big fan of Fernando’s work (as one of the three founding fathers of this blogspot and podcast), and as a fan of the musician that has leant their riffs and vocals to many projects over the years such as ctubre se ha ido, Ira Vehementi, Nepugia, (and my personal favorite) Dear Diary This is From My Teenage Angst to My Adult Self, I already know the main inspirations behind their writing process..

Joshua Fit For Battle and magical girls.

“I’LL ALWAYS PUT JOSHUA FIT FOR BATTLE AS THE MAIN INFLUENCE IN THE MIXTURE OF OUR SCREAMO, AND THAT ‘METALLIC’ SOUND WE ADOPT FOR SONGS LIKE AKEMI HOMURA BUT TSUCHIMIKADO KUON AND YAMAMOTO NAOKO WERE DEFINITELY INFLUENCED BY EMOVIOLENCE, I’D REFERENCE JEROMES DREAM IN PARTICULAR.”

- FERNANDO @RETRATOSDEHEROINA

SO HOW DID THIS SPLIT COME TO FRUITION BETWEEN THESE TWO BANDS?

I knew of the label [Soul Ameria Records] because of his series of splits Post Marked Stamps, specifically the one that featured Burial Etiquette and Undermark. This series of splits had a Japanese band and a foreigner which I thought was a cool idea.

WHAT’S THE LYRICAL TOPICS FOR YOUR TRACKS ON THE SPLIT?

“Tsuchimikado Kuon is about how we gave power to religion in our decisions. Yamamoto Naoko discusses how social networks serve to mask the feeling of emptiness and Akemi Homura portrays a person who is obsessively in love. Oh and magical girls, It’s always magical girls.”

WHAT DID THE WRITING PROCESS CONSIST OF FOR YOUR HALF OF THIS SPLIT?

“We always do tabs for all our songs, so we start with that. When we get the midi drums, we just come here to my house with my always loyal Scarlett 2i2 and record these bangers.”

SO WHAT’S NEXT FOR RETRATOS NOW?

“Well I just hope people make time to listen to this split. We wanted so bad to share a split with a Japanese band and we’re very happy that tokkan is that band. This year we’re also going to release a bunch of splits with locals bands and foreigners. So stay tuned, we plan to expand our catalogue!”

ANY CLOSING WORDS FOR THE READERS?

“Well, sometimes I think too much in what is screamo and what is not. Probably I’m too afraid of giving you a wrong image of what you expect. That’s why the image we chose to give you is a colorful one. Listen to our music, judge after.”

Un corazón inseguro

Tal vez la ausencia absoluta de amor

No podría escudar a nadie

No podría ser sano a la larga

No podría descansar las noches

Pensando en todo lo que hizo falta

Primero me forcé a negar tu partida

Segundo me obligué a deformar la historia

Tercero prometí que no caería de nuevo

Y ahora estoy aquí repitiendo el retrato

Pensando en ti

Todo se trata de ti

Cómo podría olvidar

Una desdicha que el tiempo estancará

Envuelta en mi luto me engaño al contemplar

Que en mi memoria está intacto el recuerdo

De aquella que le dió un sentido a mi valor

Quiero abrazarte

On the other side of this split is a band that is brand new band to myself and many others I’m sure. tokkan have three very unique tracks to match up with the energy on the Retratos half of this split. Fusing post-rock into their high-quality-lofi screamo jam sessions. This sounds like a band who’s writing style will be progressing into more scales and jam band arrangements. Their half of the split is a wild mix full of funky drum and bass grooves with a good handful of scales and little jam sessions with brief moments of mellow jazz that occur in-between the surging rhythms that jar you back into vigorous whiplash snap of their sound.

Kubo, the guitarist, is in a band called LAUGH DAWN. Their music is great and very unpredictable. Their bassist and drummer are also in a band called Our Error 404. The band has a beautiful arpeggio interplay and Hatate, (their guitarist / vocalist), was in several tribute bands. The first one they played in was an Asian Kung Fu Generation tribute; they also did a small Orchid tribute.

The split was mixed and mastered by Fernando at Kaname Records and right now Soul Ameria Records from Japan has the CD release, the bands are also in conversations with some other labels to eventually do a tape release.

ここで愛した精神は露と消えた
意識の底に羨望は残っているか

むだ花の蜜を飲みあさる虫けらの徒よ
虚構と繁栄を与えられて生きる
歴史の要請は喧騒に飲み込まれ
費やした痛みだけに平和が根付くのか

思考を阻害する感情を殺せ
大切に繋いだ一生の思い出を返して
戒律に触れた非業の開拓者

かけがけのない生存闘争は続く
俺は世界じゃない

Retratos de heroína is Fernando on vocals, César and Pablo on guitar & back up vocals, Valeria on bass, and Ciro on drums.

tokkan is keishi hatate on guitar and vocals, keishirou kubo on guitar, soki nakanowatari on bass and shunta inaba on drums.

Checkout the full split here : Retratos de heroína / 吶喊

Writer : @just_reidz

Editor : @garevthistle

04/16/25

Robert Reid