On her South by Southwest Music Festival debut
By September Grace O. Mahino
March 05, 2025
The allure of being on the move has always fascinated singer, songwriter, and violinist Muriel Gonzales, a.k.a. Muri. It certainly permeates her debut EP 11ème, which was produced in France and released in September 2024.
There’s the song “Anywhere but Here,” a sunny-sounding track that explores the push and pull between wanting to look for answers elsewhere and the awareness that illumination happens in stillness. In “Le Depart,” the first clip in a series of videos promoting 11ème’s release, Muri further muses on her persistent wanderlust: “I always knew I was an explorer. I had an itch, an urge, to have a taste of something different.” The camera follows her as she navigates Paris’ subway system, entering and leaving its stations, checking its maps, and waiting on its platforms. “Later in my life, I wondered, how much of that was me just wanting to run away from something?” her voiceover continues. “Was wandering far a means to imagine living a different life, being a different me?”
There has been plenty of wandering and traveling for Muri lately. Aside from shuttling between three home bases (Manila, Paris, and London), she’ll fly to Austin, Texas, this month to perform at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Music Festival as the Philippines’ sole representative. Shortly before that, she’ll attend Bangkok Music City, Thailand’s international music festival, where she’ll also be the only Filipino act featured. But while she’s busy traveling all over the world, Muri has had little chance to escape — not that she wants to.
“By this time, [the fact that I’ll be performing at SXSW] has sunk in because it’s coming up very soon,” she says with a small laugh. It’s the weekend before her flight to Bangkok, and the flurry of preparation for her overseas gigs, plus the excitement and anxiety, have been losing her some sleep. “At first, I was, like, ‘Is this really happening?’ Now, I’m just getting ready for it. I’m excited to perform.”
The power of visibility
As pumped as she is about being on the SXSW stage, Muri doesn’t lose sight of its significance, not just to her career but to Filipino music. “It’s a launch pad for artists, one of the biggest festivals for that purpose. Obviously, I’ll be there to perform, but a lot of it is also building connections and meeting people: international artists, music label reps, and festival organizers and bookers. I want them to walk away from my performance saying, ‘I’d like to watch this person again,’ and, ‘Hey, what else is happening in the Philippines?‘ Just open their eyes and get them interested [in Filipino music].”
Before even setting foot in the US, Muri already had to establish her network. Since she’ll fly in alone, she needed an Austin-based band to perform with at SXSW. Her team connected her with Gaki Azurin, the Texas-based drummer of the all-women rock band Flying Ipis, who, in turn, helped find other musicians. Muri’s first rehearsal with them will also be her first time to meet them. “It’s going to be interesting and unexpected,” she says, laughing. But while the idea of jamming with strangers is unnerving, she’s relying on her experience of working with Western artists to see her through. “It’s just having faith that it will all work out.”
With March also National Women’s Month, she hopes her upcoming performance will have a positive effect on female artists. “To be a Filipina stepping on that stage…I hope it leads to more diversity in the music scene.” Based on her experience looking for musicians to jam with, the ratio of women artists and producers to their male counterparts remains dismally low. “Personally, it helps me to see more women doing more things, taking on roles I also aspire for,” she says. “If this [SXSW visibility] could help other women, that’d be great.” She also hopes it boosts global support for Filipina talent. “We just need to find the right platform for our voices to make [ourselves] more heard and recognized in the music scene.”
Growing through discomfort
Although 11ème was made in France in collaboration with French producers, creating it added a new dimension to Muri’s connection to her Filipino identity. The difficulties of living far from home became a well of songwriting ideas, and whereas mixing languages used to feel unnatural, writing lyrics in Filipino, English, and French became an authentic way of expressing her multifaceted experiences as a global Filipino.
Producing 11ème was also a return to the fundamentals of music-making. As a foreigner navigating a different music scene, Muri had to start from zero, attending gigs to introduce herself to musicians. Upon finding the right collaborators, she was studio-bound with them during the album production. Half of 11ème’s songs were written and completed on the spot and then recorded using analog technology, which allowed her to dive into the technical details and nuances. “We sat in a really good studio with a lot of old-school equipment [that produced] a very organic sound, with elements that tickled the ear,” she recalls. “I’d love to carry that experience over for whatever I do next.”
Just as she brought her perspective as a global Filipino to her music, she’d like the local music industry to learn some of the international methods and practices she has observed. “If Filipino musicians get a chance to work with people who aren’t like them, [they should go for it],” she advises. Working with European musicians, specifically, made her appreciate their more direct communication style and the creative openness it fosters. “We tend to stick to what we know, so we don’t know what [else] is out there.” She also hopes there’ll be more government support for musicians, especially those with limited resources to sustain their artistry. “The French government gives artists a stipend to produce music if they meet certain criteria, so they have, like, a salary from the government. That would be nice.”
Muri would like Filipino musicians to be more professional in their approach to their craft, too. Acknowledging the inevitability of drama between artistic temperaments, she believes professionalism and creativity can — and do — co-exist. “Maybe it’s just more present [in other countries] that musicians treat music as work, but you just have to do your thing and set things aside to make the best musical outcome.”
The call for constant evolution
Before introducing her brand of jazzy, neo-soul pop to the world, Muri was known as part of the local indie band The Ransom Collective. Providing vocals and strings, her artistry is an indelible part of the band’s folksy sound that made it a favorite in the festival circuit. Now that she also creates and performs music as a solo artist, Muri’s oeuvre is a story of constant, if nonlinear, evolution.
Jazz and soul are actually two of her earliest musical preferences, thanks to her grandfather’s influence. “He was a pianist,” she shares, “and I learned how to improvise from him.” While her individual input as a band member has always had these genres at the core, she now enjoys a soloist’s liberty to explore and play with them, something she has always wanted.
Muri is keeping the door open to working with other genres, though. Given her penchant for exploration, she knows there’ll be other, different sounds to dive into down the road. “Artists go through phases,” she concludes. “We’re just constantly evolving with our music.”
Listen to Muri’s music on all streaming platforms and follow her on Instagram.
