“As a band, we’re not married to a certain kind of music, other than that sound that makes it Petite Amie. We’re really open,” says Isa Dosal, one of two vocalists in Mexico City-based indie pop outfit Petite Amie. Guitarist Carlos Medina (bassist of Little Jesus, who play the TLA this Thursday, supporting Jesse & Joy) adds, “We’re like a type of home studio band. We do all of our production, recording, mixing, mastering, everything.” Last year the band released their self-titled debut LP courtesy of Park The Van in America and Devil In The Woods in Mexico and Latin America. The band’s sound is not dissimilar to those of early Belle & Sebastian and Broken Social Scene (They have a Spotify playlist which also shows them to be fans of SASAMI, Mr. Twin Sister, Little Dragon, and Dr. Dog.)
Last week I got a chance to chat with Isa and Carlos via phone. Carlos tells me that Petite Amie (like so many emerging bands) are, in some ways, a product of the pandemic: “It was really like a pandemic gathering. We started seeing each other so much that we completed the album in that time. We knew people from separate things and we weren’t going to school or to our jobs, so we had time to spare, so we focused on making the album and a lot of streaming shows.” And he tells me that it’s been going very well so far: “It’s been a good vibe, because most people loved it: friends, family, critics, everyone.” “Pretty much everything has been a highlight for me. Listening to our full album for the first time was a really unique experience… It’s been a really surreal, whirlwind experience,” adds Isa.
Although they’re yet to do a proper US tour (which they tell me is hopefully in the works for the near future — possibly this summer — after finishing another album), Petite Amie has made their way to the states, being invited to play the Freakout Festival in Seattle last year and do a session with KEXP (which you can see a portion of above). Additionally, Park The Van helped them to connect with BOYO, Lucia Tacchetti, and Okey Dokey, who all remixed Petite Amie’s recent single, “Elektro,” for an EP which dropped last month.
Carlos tells me that, for him, he finds influences in classic albums by the like of The Beatles, in addition to artists like Kraftwerk, for the way they incorporate drum machines. But he tells me that the biggest influences have been from the musicians he knows personally (“It’s been many years now listening to different kinds of music, listening to music from your friends and your colleagues.”), along with the music of Mexico City itself: “It’s really huge and eclectic, different genres and music scenes from every type of music. Nowadays in Mexico City there’s a lot of rappers and a lot of reggaeton, and there’s a lot of rock out there, and big music festivals with a lot of cool bands… It’s really influential.” However, he tells me that there’s at least one thing that surely distinguishes Petite Amie from their local peers: “Our singers, Isa and Aline are half French, so making the songs in French is something different. You see a lot of bands singing in Spanish and English, but not Spanish and French.”
