PRISCILLA HERNÁNDEZ (Yidneth)

The Canary Islands off the coast of Spain, are one of the most exotic and mysterious places in the world and they may have been the perfect inspiration for Priscilla Hernandez to create her art, music, stories and website yidneth.com. Her paintings and sketches have caught the eye of a number of publishers over the years, and as she works on her on comic Yidneth, all she would like us to see about the world, comes to the forefront. A relative newcomer to music, she has become one of the online music world's most loved contributors. I finally caught up with her after a busy holiday season...

Mb: Hey Pris!
yidneth: Hey, seems you got me. LOL Well, if my computer doesn't hate me and switches off itself, hmmm LOL... my PC is not behaving good, that's why I tell you.
Mb: So, what's been going on musically for you?
yidneth: I'm trying to re-record most of my old lofi tracks with my new keyboard, and I'm trying to gather as much software and equipment as I can manage. On the learning curve of every indie musician, I guess, lol. Learning about things, a couple of months ago, I had no idea. Besides I composed a new piano song, "I'm right here" which I hope to be able to upload during January, along with the re-recordings.
Mb: What direction are you taking? Using software? Loops?
yidneth: Don't think so, I'm trying to gather software because I don't have hardware, and most of my old recordings were made in a tape. I don't have the skills to work with loops, and drums and such things yet. But I guess I have to learn what reverb is, and that kind of stuff. Really difficult, as I'm still alone with no band or any PC skilled collaborator. hahaha, but It's something that was becoming a limitations, and I don't like limitations....sensu lato..I will go on making my soft "bitter lullabies" along with a couple of instrumentals, without my voice on them. Lately I've had a couple of instrumentals in my head, that are not songs, though have some vocals at chorus. I'm writing one in LATIN, and other in JAPANESE.
Mb: What motivates you to write a song?
yidneth: What inspires me? I do believe it has to be my soul, if I can call that way my innerself. Music was not my decision. It was a need that came after my drawings and stories, you know as If I was trying to put a "score" to a silent movie. It just comes to my head, and I do hope to become a better musician to take what I have sounding inside my head, LOL ....feel free to edit the GRAMMAR MISTAKES, MIKE lol HAHAHAHAHAH :D
Mb: So would consider yourself and artist's artist? Do you need to make art?
yidneth: It's a need, yes, absolutely. A way of relieving, and way to release. Feelings that get trapped within and have no other way to get out, they have to, and sometimes they do in a painting, sometimes in a poem, and sometimes in a song. I guess the feeling itself chooses its way out.
Mb: And once they're out of you, what do you want to do with them?
yidneth: About Yidneth, my comic, I have the intention to get it published. I do believe is an unusual story and I've worked on the drawings very much during the latest two years.... About my music. Well, it's been all so sudden. It begun last May, I hadn't sung or dared to call me a musician in my life. So it was all pretty unexpected. If success come, welcome be. I am just dying to be able to get in a scenery and perform in live to people. Really don't care if it's a crowd or ten friends. I recently started to submit my latest song, "Sueño Muerto", which is better recorded (thanks to William Read) to some Spanish labels, but it's too soon to know, and it doesn't stress me much either.
Mb: Tell me more about your comic... what's it about?
yidneth: It's a pretty complex story, but basically an adult fairytale about the violent and dark side of nature itself, and the curse of fate in all of us. Really very metaphysical to explain it briefly. Is this the promo moment where you say? THEN BUY IT WHEN IT'S OUT? LOL hahahah
Mb: lol... sure can be!
yidneth: Some French editorials are interested, but I'm still open for offers. I also offer my illustrating skills for books and magazines.
Mb: How long have you been drawing?
yidneth: Drawing for a long time. It was all a chain. Started writing, then drawing then making music. hahahha! My father paints also, but I used to find his landscape paintings a little bit boring. I always was attracted by magic, and fantasy and folklore, even when it wasn't very popular. When I was in high school I won several national prizes making animation shorts, cartoons, and also was offered several jobs for animated movies in Spain, but I was too young, and that career got truncated because of my university studies as a biologist, 'till I started with "yidneth" and it convinced me again to go back with drawing... And I will never leave that again.
Mb: Is drawing a way for you to tell a story?.... or make a point?
yidneth: always to tell a story or to portray a dream.
Mb: What story do you tell? Imagine you can only draw one picture...
yidneth: You're asking me what would I draw?
Mb: Yes... what would be the story you'd want to tell?
yidneth: I would trust my heart to lead my pencils on the paper. I would like to give people the hope that magic can exist if they create it for themselves to believe, that's all. I hope "yidneth" helps adults to remember their childhood, and that time way back when they were able to believe, to experience, and feel... against what common sense says it's unreal. It brings ghosts, and fairies, and spirit, and underworlds surrounding us and being part of our existence. Basically I created a new religion in it. LOL, which is not the same thing that I personally believe in. I'm not pagan or anything. Just think that we lose the ability of dreaming and imaginate when we grow up, and thus we stop seeing that kind of things. It's just like going back to that time where you were convinced you had a monster in the wardrobe. A kind of way... back
Mb: Do you think you have a monster under your bed?
yidneth: I should tidy and clean my room now, it's a mess. They may be even monsters under my bed LOL hahahahahahahahah
Mb: Dust monsters?
yidneth: Yes, lost of dust bunnies under it LOL
Mb: Do you write stories as well?
yidneth: Yes, I told you the order is writing-drawing-music.. a part of a whole chain. Most of my songs are not based in self experiences but on drawings that are based upon stories I invented.
Mb: I mean, as much as drawing and music? Do you publish books, novels?
yidneth: I have never tried to publish a book, though I've written some. I have publish my drawings in some role magazines and fanzines, and that kind of stuff but I will try yidneth to be my novel work and I do believe it will worth all the effort and time I've put in it.
Mb: Tell me a bit about your other life... biology....
yidneth: Very boring LOL
Mb: What interested you enough to take it up and study? Why study biology?
yidneth: I wanted to study arts, but my parents didn't consider that to be a good decision, so they compelled me to begin at medicine, which I didn't like at all. Then I moved to biology. The reasons, hmm, still unknown. I guess people don't think that art (writing, music, or drawing) is a licit way to earn a life, but only for dreamers.
Mb: Sounds like they didn't want another dreamer in the world?
yidneth: I guess they wanted me to have my feet on the ground, being the only girl in the family. And besides, I always had very good qualifications, and had to receive special education because of that. So they expected me to be the lawyer, or the doctor of the family. I guess. hahaha. They just wanted the best for me even though they were committing a major mistake.
Mb: Imagine in the future they take all the dreamers and put them in a boat to go to an island to be alone...
yidneth: I would go
Mb: and they let you take three things... what would they be?
yidneth: My dog, Kira, which is my best friend, My painting stuff and a diary to write.
Mb: No piano?
yidneth: no, in a deserted island there is not electricity hahahah LOL anyway, I have the music in my head I record it, mix it, create it in my head. It is all I need concerning music.

Interviewed January 6,2003