ASTRAL PROJECTIONS AND SONIC ESCAPISM WITH JUPiTA

Now take a deep breath in with me and out… Can you feel your 10 toes on the ground? JUPiTA beckons us into the present moment, shifting our soul focus to the ethereal whispers, resonant frequencies and vocal projections that flood the space. In a secluded back room, JUPiTA and I, sit down for a post performance interview that unfurls into an intimate conversation on vulnerability, escapism and sonic art. Over hours the Naarm-based Chilean Artist, Producer, Teacher, Healer and Performer reveals the intricacies of her immersive soundscapes and the depth harboured in her multidimensional album, iO. A year on from its’ release, JUPiTA approaches the evolutions of her artistic practice with an earned confidence as she solidifies music as a creative outlet for personal liberation, first and foremost, amongst a distinctive community forward career.

JOELLA MARCUS How has SXSW been so far? 

JUPiTA SXSW has been interesting and I feel very blessed to be surrounded by so many talented artists. It's been pretty full on and chaotic. I’ve closed the chapter with iO. and I'm transitioning into my next project. SXSW is the first time that I've played with this band and my new music which is more jazz, jungle experiments fused with electronic music. I’m in a metamorphosis transition and it's definitely different. 

JM Last night, could you gauge there was a difference in expectations, or was that coming from yourself? 

JUPiTA It was pretty split. The industry was expecting the other sounds that I had been playing throughout the year , such as playing with SWAMP when I toured iO. The other half, my community, know that I DJ and produce that genre of music so they had no expectations because I just do everything.

JM You brought people into the space by doing breathing practices and asking ‘Do we have all 10 toes on the ground?’ 

It allows people to ground themselves and, even though some crowds aren't as responsive, hopefully start moving to music by making sure that they're really in that moment that you're trying to cultivate.

JUPiTA I always say you can't experience music unless you're present because it doesn't exist unless you're listening. My song SONiC HEALiNG with SWAMP always ends with a three minute breathing exercise. The whole experience of grounding yourself and being in the present moment as a way of telling people you love them is really important to me. I go out and experience music for that and I think people just need to be reminded. There is this thing, prevalent in Naarm and Gadigal, where people are talking, hanging out with their friends or just standing there during sets. When I swallow my pride and my ego and I fully let go, I can see that people do that too. It's a good experience for everyone at the end of the day. 

JM I saw that rawness come through and it felt like an offering to the audience. As an artist thinking ‘If I'm gonna let all this go and be open with you, I expect the same in return’. 

When talking about people coming to the spaces and not engaging properly, it aligns with your choice to potentially not release this vinyl on DSPs. It’s another contributing factor to getting people out into live environments and truly only being able to feel it and not just stream it.

JUPiTA Exactly.

JM How does that choice to potentially not release the vinyl on DSPs contribute to that? 

JUPiTA I have a few rules when I play live shows. I play for an hour and it’s really difficult to say and do everything you want. It's bang, bang, bang and fast paced so the breathing exercise is always one of my rules.

These are my rules: 

When I do live performances there's no point in performing music exactly like the studio recordings. For one, it loses its essence. And two, it's on DSPs so if you want to go and listen to it, go and listen to it. If I do a song that's out, I’ll perform it on its head.

The other thing is understanding the art form of gatekeeping until you're actually confident in what you're crafting. The more that I would throw things at the wall and continue to figure out what I wanted to sound like, the more I had in my vault to pick and choose from. 

I feel like I'm fighting the digital world and how we digest music. It's got its beauties in its own ways, especially in how everything's accessible, but the other end of it is really difficult and I'm really proud to be like ‘This is a physical copy. This is yours now. It only exists here right now’. It only exists when you press play on the record and you're listening to it and nowhere else. 

JM You have to be fully centred with a record when you play it. The music industry has sped up to the point where people are producing at a pace that is not sustainable personally, financially and puts more pressure on emerging artists, like yourself, to keep up with that pace. It shifts the way music is being made in its intent. 

This shift is changing whether music is about the joy of the process or the product, which must be difficult for artists like yourself, who are producing vinyls, not releasing on DSPs and forming these minor points of resistance.

JUPiTA Absolutely. I'm contemplating if I even want to drop my Deluxe on DSPs. I'm in no rush to drop my next album. I feel like I've done everything independently and if I dropped all my gatekept music, how am I going to lure people into the show? The SXSW set was in my eyes an experience, we had movement, dance, we had floral arrangements and all those details about presence relate back to how music makes me feel personally. It makes me feel aligned, which then makes me feel expansive, which then helps me to attract like minded people. People that I love, community that I love, musicians that I love, which means more music and means everything personal to me.

JM Music is this beautiful vessel of liberation and it affords you creative freedoms. How do you find that your musical purpose and your life purpose intertwine? Within music you have JUPiTA, but also you, Ruby-Sofia. How do they interweave? 

JUPiTA You knew that!

JM How did that initial name change from your own government name to JUPiTA afford you more of that creative freedom?

JUPiTA There are three points. I, Ruby-Sofia, work as an educator. I host workshops for low socio-economic schools as part of the Royal Children's Hospital and R U OK?. How that relates to JUPiTA is this idea of escapism. I help kids to escape from their realities because I work in cohorts that have experienced *trigger warning* substance abuse, gang related deaths and suicides. We write music and we produce it in a way that relates to what music is to them, creating worlds through creative writing. In order to protect them, I can't have my government name as my artist name when I'm doing other crazy things. 

Another reason was when I was pitching myself to people, I'd be like ‘Hi, I'm Ruby-Sofia representing Ruby-Sofia’ and it's hard to represent yourself. I learned that from my mentor who said you need to change your name because you're not going to be taken seriously, especially as a woman, and especially as a young, beautiful artist.

Lastly, my idea of escapism. I love space, I love time, I love music. If I think about it for too long it wigs me out. I can see colours, I can see textures, I can see worlds. It's so deep to me. Being an artist is not a choice for me. Real authentic artists, we're all just on a high, levitating, because we've been able to sing and play and talk about music all day and that's my escape. I have a reality, I gotta work but my escape is music and I've somehow turned it into my career.

JM A self built utopia. 

JUPiTA Definitely. If I don't make space to do that. I'm not a nice person. When performing, recording and writing I can say whatever I want, do whatever I want and I can add whatever I want. Especially in production, I love the little details of sounds that can trigger something for someone. I live for that. 

JM Do you write for yourself as a journalistic way of untethering everything that's going on, or do you also write with the listener in mind?

JUPiTA It really depends on the context of the song. I really struggle to talk about my music and my writing because my music is very personal. Everything that I say, write and sing it's as clear as day. It's a lot for me to release. I’m giving out parts of myself to someone that can just ingest it however they have the capacity to. It could mean nothing to someone but I also know that I've made an impact on someone else. 

JM The lyricism is very intimate especially when the words are tied to personal connections, culture, home, life, and putting it all on a page. How do you turn that vulnerability into your form of power?

JUPiTA It's my release, and it's healing to me. When I sing and perform, I can hold the space for somebody else to feel because that's what I'm projecting through the force of nature. Anytime I sing parts that really mean something to me I can't help but feel it. I premeditate for shows as I need to really get into my body and feel my body. I want the receiver to be able to feel what I'm feeling, because it is so personal, and whether they relate to it entirely or not doesn't really matter. It’s a beautiful exchange. 

For SXSW, my first song was about feeling naked because I'm up on stage exploiting my art with no fear, and people - the industry are picking apart at my seams. When I'm up on stage, I'm so vulnerable, I'm literally naked, at least that's how it feels. Sometimes it's not that fun performing. 

JM The image of being so vulnerable and leaving it all behind on the stage is a lot to offer an audience and that invitation inwards is a huge privilege for them, especially when you are unsure of how it will be received at all.

On the album iO., and with sound as healing, you integrate low frequency vibrations, elongated notes that leave space for contemplation, resonant frequencies, theta waves, ancestral sounds, vocal projections; so many different energies and experimental sounds that meld into one multidimensional piece. It’s unique, your pieces are rich allowing a different reading for listeners. Talking more about sonic landscapes, how is music a form of healing and transformation? Especially with the kids you work with where you create an escape, a safe space, through music. 

JUPiTA So beautifully articulated.

I felt the energy exchange when I was working with the kids because all of the stresses and energy that they had held in that week, they would let out on me in an hour. There were really difficult times for them and I'm so proud and happy that I was able to hold that space for them. As Jean-Michel Basquiat said “art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time". 

In a healing and spiritual sense, every month I go and enjoy a sound bath and because I have synesthesia, I genuinely see a lot of texture, colour and sound, which is why my music is really busy. I always say that my music is very maximalist. I'm not ashamed of it. 

When I first experienced a sound bath I was so inspired by the sound bowls and percussion, I felt I had to implement this on my first album. It fully aligns your body on a cellular level because they're tuned to the perfect frequency to help eradicate stress. I have always been into sound therapy and that was my first huge inspiring breakthrough as an artist. What better thing to do than to promote healing because that's exactly what I experienced when I wrote the album. I started writing this project at 20 and then we finished it in April 2024, I had gatekept it for a year. 

JM Did you need time to let everything that you had put into that album breathe?

JUPiTA I had never done anything like the album and it was almost perfect, at least to me, and I felt if I let go of it without pitching it, it would be a loss. I pitched it everywhere; independent labels, international and national, and got rejected from everything, so I waited. In the end, I got a lot of blessings that came out of it; I got to shoot a music video with NIDA, SHY SOL with Alessia, 2iNTiMATE with BAKEFILM and I compiled content to get it to a level that was more than throwing an album on DSPs. It was letting it breathe but also acknowledging that everything's about strategy.

I'm happy that I waited for the Deluxe because every time I listen to it, which I don't often, I interpret it differently. I was pretty young when I wrote iO. so it already feels nostalgic. The album, iO. was very soft, it was very delicate and it cradled me. I was holding myself and my inner child a lot in this project. Now I’m in a transitional period where the direction I want to go in sonically is feminine but edgy and powerful.

This next album says ‘I've got muscles now’. I feel angry and I feel like my inner child is upset because music was so safe and now that it's my career it doesn't feel safe anymore. It feels like everything is against emerging creatives; streaming services, opportunities, AI industry and it feels like it's getting worse and worse. But I'm strong enough to do it now.

That's the direction that I want to take it in – This feminine rage.

JM Rage, feminine rage and sexuality, feminine sexuality. Knowing how to be empowered through your sexuality, is another trivial thing in our current media climate. 

JUPiTA Absolutely. That's another thing that I'm femininely raging about – you're only seeing me with your eyes, you're not feeling me and you're not understanding me. With music, I've learned it’s a privilege, genuinely a privilege to be able to express myself in a way where people find me attractive. I use that in my art because I like the way that I feel when I do it, not from the validation of other people, but it's definitely a double edged sword.

JM The image speaks before the person but to reclaim that and use it in the sense of ‘You can have my image but you don't know me’.

JUPiTA But let me slap you with the ‘they do have a part of you because they're listening to your music which is an extension of you’. I've honestly learned the less I know the better. 

JM Being selective about where you place your attention, worth, time and only valuing things that invest in your own agenda, not theirs. 

JUPiTA I definitely feel that with this new live set because I do feel sexy when I sing some of the songs but what I'm saying is not sexy at all. I'm mad, firstly, and using double entendres with sexual energy but also providing solutions.

JM Sex and solutions. 

How has your identity and sound evolved? Especially when considering your creative community and collaborators; bbsanii ofc, cherry chola, SWAMP, Mali Jo$e and more, as you learn parts of yourself through others.

JUPiTA Absolutely. I've been making music with bbsanii for four years now. We're both Latinx, we're both queer and they're so healing to me because we have the same music taste and we always know exactly what we're talking about. Cherry Chola, same deal. It's so easy to be myself around femme, queer, Latin people. 

Mali has been my friend for three and a half years now and my career properly started around that time. He has rooted for me for a long time. We equally believe in each other and he's given me a lot of space and strength to just talk. I'm really proud of Mali because he has the same intention when it comes to music in alignment, expansion, meditation and promotion of healing. You can see that because that's how his music makes him feel. That's really inspiring because that's exactly what I want people to feel in my music. 

Another rapper who does that for me is MAMMOTH, who features on SONiC HEALiNG. Mali and MAMMOTHs’ support in particular has been really beautiful because it gives me the space and the strength to talk about what I want to talk about. 

JM In a previous interview you mentioned the “curse of being an artist and the struggles faced by the Latinx diaspora”, noting barriers and the uncertainty of this career path. What beliefs have you had to stick to pull yourself through?

JUPiTA You have to be fearless in thinking and be fearless in knowledge. Knowledge is power and when you know who you are, you're powerful. That's my big belief system in music. Another reason is why I chose the name JUPiTA because the planet is the largest in the solar system. It's magnetic. What it does, on a cosmic level, is it deters asteroids from hitting Earth. Jupiter is the big protector of the solar system. The whole concept of everything is about protection, healing and safety. Jupiter is a masculine planet and I have masculine qualities about me in being outspoken or confident. My mum really raised me to have no fear in saying what I need. She would just tell me to go get it if you want it so bad, respectfully.

JM It’s an important quality, as well as femme presenting women, to know that you can back yourself and to not be scared of being “pushy or rude”.

JUPiTA At this point, I don't give a fuck. Honestly, I'm not patient but I obviously move with grace. I will only work with someone if we feel aligned and we're both getting some liberation or creative freedom out of it. It's an energy exchange at the end of the day. I don't tolerate places that I feel uncomfortable when it comes to my art. I'll be outspoken about that if I need to. It's important to protect the queer community and the LatinX community and I've had my fair share of uncomfortable environments which pushed me from a really young age to learn how to produce or as simple as how to just set up a mic so I don't have to be in the room with someone being disrespectful. It's a very common thing, unfortunately, and my goal eventually is to create a space for mainly women and Latinx artists who want to be an artist. I really want to be that person for someone else to be able to come in safely and do their thing. 

I've learnt through my friends and community, If I'm a fan of you, I'm shameless about it. Let’s collaborate. Please come to my space, it's such a beautiful experience. I'm going to put in the time and effort so that you can feel comfortable as an artist. I can go and listen to their music and enjoy them being an artist. It takes a village. It's an exchange. It makes me feel so alive. 

JM I always think artists are so brave in giving so much, because sometimes I think about whether I would ever put my diary out for an audience to potentially love or hate?

JUPiTA Every day, I think “should I take this shit down?” What was your favourite song? 

JM The first one that attracted me was SHY SOL but I also like 2iNTiMATE.

JUPiTA 2iNTiMATE is about not just giving my art out because it's intimate to me. I've had opportunities with labels that could help me and I feel like I'm just signing away a part of me but at what cost? The whole song was about how the only thing that I can offer you, is to sing. It's got no chorus and the hook doesn’t need words because it has feeling. I really do think 2iNTiMATE is underrated. When you listen to the album in full, they're gonna understand REAL! and SHY SOL don’t represent what the album is because it's so experimental. 

JM Do you have a favourite track or is there any part of the album that you personally have the strongest response to?

JUPiTA It's really hard because every day changes. earth² is super nostalgic for me, I feel like a little girl with plaits on a hill in a yellow flower field but it talks about ‘falling, in my mind to abyss it's bliss up here’. It then transitions into SHY SOL which is so beautiful, it's sunny, and by 2iNTiMATE you're realising an arc of realisations and experiences. I tried to do it in the sense that you're visiting little planets. It starts with earth² and ends with ²ME because I wanted to write to the little girl that was in the beginning of the album. The story flow is ‘Here I am. Life is beautiful. I don't know where my mind is. Where's yours? We're all lost here’. It’s for my inner child to be like ‘You're okay. Everybody is confused.’

See more from JUPiTA (Ruby-Sofia (she/her)) here: Instagram | YouTube | Spotify | TikTok / words by Joella Marcus

Creative direction, movement direction, producer, casting @magg._z garments + styling @dgiannavintage photography + post production @dj_lux_ hmua + talent @jupita

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