The most enduring pop projects are often the strangest. While the gauzy serenity of soft rock and bedroom pop can be hard to resist, the albums that last the longest in the cultural zeitgeist offer quite the opposite of an easy listen. This can manifest in different ways, from the towering compositional leaps Prince took in his heyday to the thorny blend of electronics and emotions of BRAT. But even if the industry leans conservative, the most resonant pop exercises always have an awareness of, and preferably a home within, the avant garde.
The duo behind Titanic, Mabe Fratti and Hector Tosta (aka I. la Católica), have long lived in the mixed-genre experimental scene. As a soloist, Fratti’s songs bounce between free jazz and chamber pop, running between structure and unboundedness. Her collaborative projects with Amor Muere collective members and Gudrun Gut are similarly exploratory and complex. Tosta has contributed guitar to a variety of bands performing everything from punk to progressive folk rock, each project thornier than the last. And together, the power couple have been on a tear ever since they properly joined forces under the moniker Titanic roughly five years ago. Their songs are filled to the brim with jerky, arrhythmic guitar, cello, and drum lines, each more memorable and unexpected than the last. On their second album, Hagen, the pair’s exhilarating rhythms and soaring vocals create an edgy, foreboding style of experimental pop that’s both catchy and challenging.
Over a bed of handclaps and dramatic spiccato bowing, Hagen opens with “Lagrima del sol.” Fratti sings of apocalypse with the clarity of a cornet: “No me vayas a pedir el último cigarro cuando se acabe el mundo” (“Don’t ask me for my last cigarette when the world is over”). The juxtaposition between pointed instrumentals and smooth, bold singing recalls Tune-Yards’ poppiest escapades; both Fratti and Merrill Garbus have a knack for finding the groove where one isn’t immediately apparent. The song transitions from terrestrial to celestial—a homespun campfire pop-chant into a cinematic ‘80s easy listening track. “Gotera” brings us back down to Earth as Fratti delivers cryptic observations over shrill, rapid-fire recursions of guitar and drums, equal parts aggressive and meditative. It feels like Titanic’s take on a Homogenic track: it’s relatively minimal, save for spurts of percussion and cello as Fratti’s sings, “Nadie encuentra la gotera / Y yo se donde está / Se pelean en la puerta / Y nadie logra entrar” (“Nobody knows where the leak is / But I know where it is / They fight in front of the door / And nobody can go in.”).
“Escarbo dimensiones” starts with muffled syncopation and grows into a symphony of strings and satiny guitars that would feel right at home in an old action flick about international spies or cyborgs gone rogue. Something this glossy could easily come off as gauche, but Fratti’s prismatic voice is rich with emotion as she swings from word to word. “Te tragaste el chicle” first sees her vocals spread evenly over a slow, thumping ‘80s ballad beat. She sings at a bright, level volume before belting, “Se que no me van a perseguir” (“I know I won’t be chased”). The sprightly guitar line beneath her climaxing vocals underscores the sense that Fratti’s making a much-needed declaration. As much as there is to fear in this world—she cites technological messiahs and armed monkeys—she sees no value in running anymore. The line can be read as either resignation or resolution, to give up and accept fate or stand one’s ground against enemies who aren’t really after you.
Throughout Hagen, Tosta works like a musical architect, composing skittering and haunting passages of guitar and bass that often contrast with the lyrics that he and Fratti compose. His bass and guitar work are especially striking on “Gallina degollada,” which translates to “The Decapitated Hen.” The gruesome image of a headless chicken comes to represent the haunting fear that counterparts arguing can spiral into an unresolvable clash between people who can only expect the worst of each other. While Fratti makes her presence most known through her voice on Hagen, there are select moments where her cello seizes the limelight. “Pájaro de fuego” features some of the most charming embellishments she’s ever sewn into a Titanic composition, fluttering around Daniel Lopatin’s synthesizers like the titular firebird. The cello solo that opens and reappears throughout “La Dueña” is dramatic, disorienting, and beautiful. Nestled in rolling drum fills, warbling keyboards, and Fratti’s vocals, it feels like a contemporary opera number, one best performed in a concert hall with plenty of cubic footage for every sound wave to spread out. For an album rich with gravitas, “La Dueña” feels the heaviest.
“La trampa sale” opens with a sparse, simple drum beat while Fratti sings with stunning clarity: “No mires hacia atrás que nadie se depide / Perdónate si estas ahogandote en tus opiniones / Perdónate ya que ya fue, ya fuiste y te devolviste / Perdónate ya que no hay tiempo para tus berrinches” (“Don’t look back because no one says goodbye / Forgive yourself if you’re drowning in your own opinions / Forgive yourself, since it’s already over. You’ve already gone and returned. / Forgive yourself, since there’s no time for your tantrums”). After all these songs dotted with frightening images and haunting lyrics, “La trampa sale” sees Fratti finally cut to the chase, encouraging the listener to move beyond the horror and consider what comes next. Amidst all the terror that abounds, you still have to manage the terror that’s within yourself.
These moments of relative clarity are what make <Hagen so imperative. Titanic’s approach to the avant garde is refreshing: they don’t dangle quick bliss on the other end of some painful exercise in sonic endurance, but blur the lines between challenge and reward, the instances of lucidity woven into the tapestry of experimentation itself. Their compositions are dark and confrontational, but they beget moments of captivating brilliance. That is what makes the album stick the most: the seamless transitions where clashing percussion and piercing guitars break apart into a riff, a hook, a melody you won’t be able to get out of your head for weeks. Experimentation and accessibility do not have to be opposing forces, and Titanic makes that argument better than most.
Devon Chodzin is a Pittsburgh-based critic and urban planner with bylines at Aquarium Drunkard, Stereogum, Bandcamp Daily and more. He can be found on social media, sometimes.
