Reviews | Notes | Articles
“His music is spare and pensive.” — John Schaefer [NewSounds]
“…The deeply emotional album forges bridges between this world and ancestral veneration…” — Jasmine Espy [I Care If You Listen]
“An extraordinarily deep thinker… able to take a listener into mysterious by-ways using very slender means.” — Stephen Moul [Music Trust]
“De La Chica… who emphasizes meditative simplicity.” — Steve Smith [The New Yorker Magazine]
"His aesthetic palette is clean, rounded, precise, every color and tone is discrete, outlined with clear, black borders.” — George Grella
"An elegant, original, poetic film that touches us with delicacy. Julián De La Chica is an author to follow." — Prisma Film Festival
“The results are dark and hypnotic, evocative, sometimes cinematic." — Kurt Gottschalk
“De La Chica takes us into Próspero's mind in a very slow and raw way. There is nothing hidden, although there is much that is not said.” — Chicago Movie Magazine
“The result is a human connection, familiar shapes but new sounds.” — George Grella
“De La Chica exhibits directorial competency in creating a fully-realised canvas; through his melancholic score, long takes and unkempt man and cave surrounded by alcohol and drugs, Agatha evokes isolation and loneliness, unfulfilled sexual desire and repression, and depression to the point of self-termination.” — Adrian Pérez
“Musically, De La Chica knows how to use space and the weight of silence to load the most commonplace chords with aching resonance. Preconceived musical entities like “dissonance” or a jazz riff become sealed in a kind of sonic amber—objects in themselves.” — Thomas May
"This is music to be experienced... No doubt some of the most remarkable music I have heard in a long time to which I will return often." — Philip Thomas
"The dark, pensive music captures moments of intimate, sometimes anonymous confessions, painful recollections and nocturnal reflections on life, death, love and loss." — Andrei Cherascu
“De La Chica listens to the wounds, the disease, the flesh that rots and falls off, stringing together testimonies of amputated lives.” — Susan Campos-Fonseca
"There is something Almodovarian about De La Chica’s work; though Almodovar’s lens idolises male body perfection, De La Chica’s romanticises imperfection to the point of repellence." — Adrian Pérez
“De La Chica proposes in his music very personal and raw themes, also every day, and tells them in an elegant and eloquent way.” — NY Weekly
“It’s one of those works, and one of those performances, that invites you to listen to the space in between the notes.” — Rosa Gollan [NewSounds]
“And De La Chica, even with a resume that includes the usual traditional training, is very much a composer of life in the streets. That’s what this concert is all about.” — George Grella
“Dora is both an artistic triumph and an emotional story at its heart… De La Chica has made a potent film, one that works on several levels simultaneously. Visually poignant, thematically relevant and artistically creative, Dora is a winner.” — FiFF London
“No matter the label, what De La Chica does is create an experience—a piece of work skillfully crafted—whether it’s classical, hip-hop, electronic, or ambient.” — Flaunt Magazine
“The story comes up with revelations and surprises as it develops and is unsettlingly memorable at the end.” — Songlines Magazine
“God’s Punishment is not just about a painful past. Even now, people often suffer not as much from the health conditions they have as from the public health measures that are supposed to manage those conditions. The fate of people affected by leprosy, and its impact on entire generations, is one of those sad stories. With powerful language, author Julián De La Chica reminds and warns us of what can happen when human rights are taken away from people.” — Professor Dainius Pūras, MD Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health
“In the end, although cinema may not be the usual purview of accomplished Colombian composer Julián De La Chica, his short ‘Dora’ accomplishes some very impressive cinematic feats, both technically and aesthetically…” — Athens Art Film Festival