About
The Squirrel is an EP by guitarist and composer Martín Theurillat, born in Santiago de Chile. At its core, the record is a guitar trio project, but what really shapes it is the rhythmic language behind it — drawing from Chile and neighbouring countries, and filtering those influences into a more open, contemporary setting. Together with Nadav Erlich and Iago Fernández, the trio explores grooves that feel rooted but not fixed, playful without losing depth.
The music came out of a very direct process. One upcoming gig, one week of writing, and a clear intention: compose for this specific band and see what happens. That immediacy stayed in the recording. A lot of the rhythmic ideas trace back to South American traditions — sometimes clearly, sometimes just as a starting point that gets stretched or reshaped. “Chacks,” for example, begins from the idea of a chacarera, but ends up somewhere quite different, more like a reinterpretation than a reference.
Groove is the main thread running through the EP. It’s not treated as something fixed, but as a shared space where the trio can move, react, and push against each other. Harmonically, much of the material stays modal, which keeps things open and lets the rhythmic interplay come forward. There’s a balance between structure and looseness that gives the music its character.
Some tracks lean into more specific images. “Bare” creates a long, almost meditative space, while the title track, “The Squirrel,” reflects the restless energy of someone living at double speed. Throughout the EP, there’s a sense of identity that comes less from strict stylistic choices and more from instinct — especially in how rhythm and form are handled, slightly offset from what you might expect in a European trio context.
Recorded with Johan Olsson and featuring artwork by Cristina Estanislao, the EP keeps things simple on the surface: guitar, bass, drums. Underneath, it’s a quiet but clear exploration of how South American rhythmic ideas can live and evolve in a different musical environment.
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