Artist Profile: CBARRGS
Cbarrgs, the Mexico City-born and San Diego-raised indie artist, has been intermeshing his musical roots with his bedroom pop-oriented interests for years now, and, having taken a recent turn in his incorporation of the sounds of his home, he continues to develop an intriguing and unique niche within the overarching indie scene.
As a child, Cbarrgs was surrounded by the music his parents loved. Growing up in church, he was mesmerized by the slow, mellow piano melodies of Latin hymns, and the heartbreak songs of artists such as José José and Luis Miguel.
In fact, he first learned the piano through the tutelage of the band at his church. As a child, he approached the church’s piano player, asking them to show him how to play some of the songs that were played in service.
He quickly took a liking to the intricate skill of piano-playing, and, through various Youtube videos, began learning songs at home that appealed to him. Moreover, his father spent years in a Mariachi band, exposing Cbarrgs even further to the music that his family had grown to love.
When he reached high school, however, his taste blossomed. He became heavily involved in the indie scene of the mid-2010s, with artists like Mac Demarco, Steve Lacy, King Krule, and Banes World formulating his adolescence.
His true interest in making his own music began, however, in a multi-media class at his high school that provided students, as part of the curriculum, with basic tutorials on how to use GarageBand. Shortly after, he began experimenting with electric guitar-wrought, reverb-drowned indie sounds in his bedroom at home. Yet, as he experimented with replicating the sounds of the artists that had permeated his adolescence, he felt himself being continually drawn back to the sounds of his childhood.
“I noticed that, a lot of times when I'm making music, I'll record a drum beat, and sometimes I'll start playing an old church song that I knew how to play… Then I'll record guitar to it, but I'll add that shoegaze, dreamy effect to it… I feel like my music is the product of the mixture between Christian music and indie bedroom pop.”
From that point onward, Cbarrgs began releasing track after track on Soundcloud, feeling out his sound and, in the process, finding an audience. This audience soon expressed a desire to see his works transplanted onto streaming services, which led to his first full project, the “Let Me Know - EP” as well as two projects comprised fully of demos from his earliest days of experimentation.
Yet, with his recent output, he has leaned even further back into his Mexican roots, taking inspiration from the genre of Corridos and incorporating it into the lyrics and sounds of his recent sonic wanderings.
His newest project, “See You In My Dreams”, includes, for the first time, layers of an acoustic guitar that his father bought for him, and, through the arrival of the new instrument into his sound, Cbarrgs was able both pay homage and re-invent the ballad-oriented style of Corridos musicians into his bedroom-pop niche.
“I feel like [incorporating Corridos] rooted me in my Mexican race, because you never really see Mexicans in the indie scene…. I personally believe that Corridos is my people's music, so I [wanted to] incorporate my people's music to what I like listening to.”
Now, as Cbarrgs plans to continue to increase his already prolific output, his newfound link between his roots and his musical manifestations will continue to allow him to carve out an intriguing niche in the bedroom-pop landscape.
