Somewhere between a burnt-out VHS tape and the pulse of a dim-lit jazz lounge, is a space that Sparklmami's music seems to emerge from. Born in Texas and now based in Chicago, the multidisciplinary artist crafts minimalistic soundscapes that feel like eavesdropping on a dream, a collage of textures and sounds, rooted in a designed improvisation. As a series of intimate sonic vignettes that tap into the subconscious, her music allows memory to bleed into melody, and personal history to loop across polyrhythmic beats. There’s soul, there’s funk, there’s bolero but there’s also a refusal to be neatly categorized.

Sparklmami aka Ariella Granados, describes her sound not as constructed, but as evolved. "I wasn't consciously thinking about how to navigate creating my sound, it developed from the past decade of living my life and listening to a lot of music. During that time cultivating my taste, I felt drawn to the sounds of the 60’s and 70’s, specifically the timeless feel of Mexican bolero. It's all familiar to me because that is what my family was playing in the house growing up," she shares.

Her single, 'Fajas' melds spoken word over lush harmonies and syncopated rhythms. The arrangement nods to '70s jazz fusion, and there's an intimacy not just in instrumentation but in sentiment as well. Its video is inspired by vintage TV shows like 'The Brady Bunch'. The artist was interested in the ideas of domesticity, nuclear families, and who gets represented in this landscape. "Often, especially in this time period, it was primarily white folks," she explains. "So I’m thinking, 'how can I insert myself here and challenge this?' So I threw in absurd imagery, such as the gag ball or the snake."

On another single, 'Running', we’re invited into a similar space. Neo soul meets jazz, and visuals are coded in the grammar of mixed-media, retro, as if recorded on worn-out film stock. She muses, "Running also shares a similar theme where I’m thinking about domestic labor, who gets to be in the background/foreground, and blurring those lines. All while presenting those concepts in a way that’s still imaginative and playful."

'Touch' veers further into psychedelic rock, soaked in funk and coloured with absurdity. Likened to the 8mm, its video is vibrant and mysterious, leaning into nostalgia without fetishizing it. The track, like the rest of her work, doesn’t follow a traditional structure. Instead we're invited into her world through the a more ambient storytelling. Her songs feel like a recorded live performance — fluid, alive, experiential.

Half Mexican, half Indian, Sparklmami navigates dual inheritances without ever diluting them. And her music is a natural extension of those spaces. Through an excavation of self, she explores the personal and collective memories that make up her roots. But her practice is as much an endearing retrospective as it is a creative discovery of the person she is becoming.

Unlike the architecture of 4-minute arcs that most contemporary pop music guides us through, Spaklmami's songs are charmingly volatile, expansive and timeless. Be it the nostalgic, grainy digital universes of early technologies or the analog warmth, soulful riffs and hazy falsettos, she builds a mesmerising and cinematic kaleidoscope of Latin expression that has always embodied femininity and joy.

Follow Sparklmami here.

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