Kaleema

Folk-infused electronica from upcoming composer, producer, dj and violinist Heidi Lewandowski​, born in Argentina, but with family roots in Poland, Italy, Lebanon and Spain.

One of her grandfathers was a Polish soldier in the World War II. After the Battle of Monte Cassino, he met an Italian woman and married her. After the war, they moved together to Buenos Aires.

Her two other grandparents came to Argentina from Spain and Lebanon. But Kaleema, as her debut LP “Nómada” demonstrates, is simultanously a gloval nomada and a thoroughly South American musician.

“I started playing the violin when I was 14, it was my first approach to music and I was passionate from the beginning, I was discovering a whole new universe,” she says.

“I’ve always listened to a lot of music. But it was when I started playing an instrument that something really changed me and my way of perceiving music and life. I also played guitar and sung, and after a couple of years I started to play piano and study music composition.”

“In 2012 I went to New York to study electronic music production in SAE. That’s when I decided that I wanted to work with both analog and digital instruments.”

“When I returned to Argentina I started playing violin in an orchestra. In 2014, I participated in a series of concerts in Teatro Colón with german composer and orchestral director from Kompakt records Gregor Schwellenbach, interpretating mythical electronic songs with classical instruments, I was amazed with the experience, this was really inspiring for me.”

“I don’t know If I have music heroes, but some of the artists that realy influenced me are Björk, Radiohead, Tinariwen, Lucky Dragons, and Konono N1. I also really love to collect vinyls, and I have a small collection of folk music from everywhere – Bulgaria, Africa, Peru, Bolivia, Asia, India, and classical music of course.”

“Kaleema is a zulu word that means ‘she, the one who dances’, also in Arabic means ‘word’. For me this project is about giving me space for experimenting and boing beyond”.

“These are my strongest influences – the melodies from the mountains, the voices from the heart of the earth that talk about daily things, small rituals, lullabies, love and suffering, life itself.”

Stream Nómada” LP on Soundcloud.

*

Kaleema on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud.

Recent music from Argentina