iLa Minori

Likewise, it would also be in poor taste for me to talk about San Antonio native ILA Minori, and her gorgeous new track “Mend”. - Ghost of Blind Lemon Dallas Music Blog

I first came to know of Ila Minori (shown above) through her previous band in San Antonio called Ledaswan. The band came highly recommended by The Chloes, and that’s a strong endorsement in my book. Ledaswan broke up in 2013, and now Minori is working on her first solo album, Traveling with Ghosts. She briefly released her song “Sarah” as a free download for an extremely limited period of time. As in, if you blinked, you missed it. Lucky for me, I caught the song, and I loved it. There’s a certain sweetness, almost twee quality, to the melody, and certainly the song has plenty of killer hooks. If I had to do the RIYL thing, the first two artists I’d list are Belle & Sebastian and La Sera. That may seem a strange combination, yet if you listen, it may make sense. - Ghost of Blind Lemon Dallas Music Blog

The last few days, I’ve been plugging my Return of the Lucky Thirteen Bandcamp compilation pretty hard. The next two videos are not songs from the comp, but they both share connections to the comp. The first video is actually not even a full music video, but rather a teaser for a song by ILA Minori called “Panoramic View”. That song is not available for purchase yet, but you can get her song “Mend” when you buy Return of the Lucky Thirteen. Just sayin’, you know. - Ghost of Blind Lemon

Best Singer-Songwriter voted by San Antonio Current Music Awards Readers Choice - San Antonio Current

The lyrics perfectly nail the state of mind Ila Minori's was in when embarking on this album: pain, heartbreak, bandbreak, uncertainty. But it only took her one short trip to Italy to find new love, inspiration, and her most solid music to date. Ila Minori is back, closer than ever to finding her own voice. In a town known for its many first-rate female solo artists, Ila is a force to be reckoned with, and this is only her solo beginning: her best is still to come. - Enrique Lopetegui AP Press

Ila Minori, best known for her heavy moody bass and western guitar chords that coincide with her low celestial voice and could be found hosting open mic night at Sancho’s gave Sobre Sound a listen to new track ‘Gritty Streets of Rome’ before embarking on a tour to Italy and Germany this winter in support of the EP.

Minori explained that the EP will be feature a few songs off the new record + acoustic live sessions that she had recorded in July with her producer Jason Rubal who had worked with artists such as Amanda Palmer and the Cure.

Ila Minori gave Sobre Sound a clip of song “Gritty Streets of Rome” you could listen to here:

It is a great song because despite the title, it captures the essence of a Texas girl out of element with bluesy western guitar chords that capture the loneliness and heart of a modern day vagabond.

“What helps me stay driven is love and romance. Traveling and this mystical thing about the song and how it gives me the opportunity to heal from the things in life that may bring you down or distract people.” Ila Minori explained to Sobre Sound. “But at the end of the day for me it's art that drives me to have this desire to write and then create, and then connect. The creation or the cycle of living, loving, hurting...writing about it, recording it....and now the album is its own entity separate from the me, the artist. Now I work for the record. My job is to promote the record now...which is one way of hearing my songs.”

The entire collection of songs has the knitty gritty Jewel-esque angst that can still channel the emotion either acoustically or with full band and will be released in an album later on this year in the United States.

You can catch Ila Minori on Saturday, Nov. 14 at Imagine Books and Records alongside Alix Williams, State Sponsored Programming and Cat the Manapult. More details here. - Sobre Sound

San Antonio musicians find it is sometimes necessary to leave the city and the state for more opportunities. It’s important for musicians to break out of the same performance cycles of playing the same venues to the same crowds. Some artists won’t get the breaks they need in a growing market like San Antonio, and travel to other cities looking for the targeted exposure required for growth. Recently, the SA band The Hawks (of Holy Rosary) were in NYC and performed at the famed CMJ Music Marathon. Currently abroad, is singer/songwriter Erica Monzon aka Ila Minori. She is on a writing/recording excursion in Italy,

“It’s been a long-term goal of mine to play in Europe so when the opportunity came for me to reside in Italy for a few months I took it as a sign and the perfect opportunity for me to accomplish that goal.”

Ila is staying in northern Italian town of Dimaro in the mountainous province of Trentino. She was in the planning stages of a new EP here in San Antonio when the opportunity came to light. She has a show scheduled in Vienna Austria on December 6th, a pending date in Berlin, and other local musicians she’s networked with are assisting in booking a few more shows.

After a showcase at the Dewey Beach Music Conference in Delaware, producer Jason Rubal of Seventh Wave Productions contacted Ila, saying he had been listening to her work online and would like to get her in the studio. Rubal has worked with Amanda Palmer and members of The Cure in the past and coincidentally, is scheduled to be in Berlin taking care of pre-production work with another band at the same time Ila will be there. Most of the bands he currently works with are up and coming bands from the UK and Europe:

“After speaking with him we share the same aesthetic and a similar background of music and bands that we like. He sent me a c.d. of bands he’s produced and expressed his desire to do something different from the genres he normally works with (which were artsy, quirky, dirty).”

Erica set up a GoFundMe account, where San Antonio audiences can participate in the growth and evolution of one of our own homegrown artists. The music industry over the last several years, has morphed into an unrecognizable mutant full of self serving organizations that prey on the willingness of performers who have few remaining options to fuel and develop a career in music. Erica set up tiered rewards for those who are smart and kind enough to join in this community endeavor.

“I feel very invigorated, blessed, excited and somewhat relieved at how everything has been panning out. I’m just trying to take in everything here in Italy. It’s such a beautiful country.”

Can’t wait to hear what Ila Minori does next. San Antonio should be proud: one of our own artists left the city, only to carry us along for the ride. Please participate here and be sure to follow along with Ila Minori on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for updates on what’s to come. - Sobre Sound

After her divorce, Erica Monzon was in need of some time away.

When the musician and former special education instructor got an offer for a part-time teaching job in Italy, she saw the opportunity as a way to rediscover her creativity, too.

Monzon, who performs music as Ila Minori, spent four months in Northern Italy in 2014. When she wasn’t teaching, she explored nearby towns, met musicians and played in coffee shops tucked away in the countryside.

“I found I was very prolific,” says Monzon, of San Antonio, Texas. “I was able to write so easily. I knew it was the right decision to just take off and go over there.”

Monzon completed an album’s worth of material on her first Italian adventure. The Mexican-American artist will perform at BohoZone Friday.

Monzon connected with Palmyra’s Seventh Wave Studio owner Jason Rubal after a performance at Dewey Beach Music Festival in Delaware. They spoke on the phone about Rubal potentially producing her album. While Monzon was overseas, Rubal was working with another client in Berlin, so Monzon caught a train to meet him there.

When she returned to the United States, she recorded her album at his Lebanon County studio, forming her backing band with Harrisburg and Lancaster musicians.

After recording the album in Palmyra, Monzon found herself being pulled back to Europe for both professional and personal reasons. Professional reasons included wanting to explore her opportunities there and play more shows with musicians she met on her first trip.

The personal reason? She fell in love.

“Some of the music was inspired by that experience,” Monzon says, citing her song “Gritty Streets of Rome” as an example.

She says the album captures a two-year period in her life.

“It’s like my story, from the time I left my marriage to trying to figure out my life, trying to put it back together and meeting this special person,” Monzon says.

Monzon’s second trip to Italy was nine months long. She returned to Texas about two months ago.

“I was like, OK, I need to go back and promote the album now,” Monzon says. “That was also difficult in itself, to leave someone you always want to be with.”

Monzon’s forthcoming album, “Traveling with Ghosts,” does not have an official release date. Minori has shared several songs from the album online and will have download cards available at her Lancaster show.

Monzon considers herself a late bloomer when it comes to music. She didn’t pick up a guitar until her senior year of high school, but quickly learned songs by her favorite artists such as Mazzy Star, the Cure and Radiohead.

Within a year of learning the guitar, she started crafting her own songs. She did her first EP on a digital 8-track recorder and played every instrument herself. At the time, she hadn’t yet performed her first live show.

She then joined indie rock group Ledaswan, a more guitar-driven project than Ila Minori. Monzon’s work as Ila Minori is sometimes compared to Joan Baez or Ani DiFranco.

Monzon worked for two years as a special education teacher in Texas in 2008-10.

“I knew that I wanted to try to teach, but I also wanted to keep being creative somehow, whether it was music or writing,” Monzon says. She sometimes used music in the classroom, like playing guitar for her students or playing pop music. Now, Monzon utilizes the flexibility of part-time work to dedicate a significant amount of her time to music.

While a release date isn’t yet scheduled for “Traveling with Ghosts,” Monzon hopes to release the album on iTunes and on vinyl. - lancasteronline.com

Hear Me Roar Women Artists along with Asbury Park’s The Saint hosted Electric, an all-female rock showcase featuring seven – yeah, friggin seven – of the best female-fronted acts in the area, including Tara Dente, Bone and Marrow, Emily Grove, Ila Minori, Girl, Jane, and Bi Tyrant. Hear Me Roar is planning a series of events in the greater New Jersey/New York area in an effort to promote and connect women artists, and if you get the chance to check out a show, I highly recommend it based on the wealth of talent we saw at this show.

I love the authenticity of The Saint. The bar is small, the floors are all cracked and dirty, and every inch of the walls is covered in band posters and stickers from the past twenty-plus years. It’s a total throwback to what Asbury used to be before the great yuppie invasion. As one of the longest standing venues for original, independent music, The Saint has become a landmark of the Asbury Park Scene and has been incredibly active in promoting this community throughout their history.

Meredith had never been to Pete & Elda’s (I know, but she’s learning) and since we were hungry and sober, I figured it’d be a good place to stop before the show. I just forgot that there’s always a solid thirty-minute wait, so we got to the show a little late, which has become customary for N.J. Racket. The crowd at The Saint was small early on, but still a good turnout for a Thursday night.

Bone and Marrow were beginning their set as we walked in. I’ve been a fan of the duo of Daimon and Jennifer Santa Maria since I saw them play at Tierney’s in Montclair last Halloween. These two have such a unique and dynamic sound, ranging from a kind of harmonic synth pop to a grooving hard rock. Daimon plays guitar while mixing in flute solos when he’s not shrieking high-pitched vocals, and Jennifer plays perfectly syncopated counter melodies on the bass while providing harmonizing vocals. These two blend together flawlessly and have a sound that seems so much more layered than you would ever imagine from a two-piece band. They just have such a great, positive energy on stage. The song Eye Contact from their last album, Patterns, is simply one of the most euphoric tracks I’ve ever heard, with a chorus that rings out, “Everything is beautiful/ Everything here is beautiful/ And nothing is regrettable/ Nothing here is regrettable/ Think I’m starting to see what you mean now/ I don’t have to see to believe now.” There’s so much hope and positivity in that song, and those are not two emotions that are often invoked in me.

During the set, Jennifer said a few words about her journey as an artist and performer, recounting her first experience playing a show at The Saint several years ago. The band was approached after their set and told how great they all were and that the guitarist was this and the drummer was that and that the bassist, Jennifer, was the sex appeal. She talked about what being looked at in that way before being looked at as a musician has meant to her and why, to this day, events like this one aimed to empower women in the local music community are so important. It was a powerful moment in the midst of a powerful and uplifting set.

Then, all the good vibes and positivity came crashing down when Emily Grove took the stage. To clarify, that’s not a bad thing. Grove’s vocals and lyrics are purely overpowering. They have such a weight to them that you’re afraid you’ll be crushed under it by the end of the set. Primarily performing as a solo guitarist/vocalist, Emily Grove has recently added David Ross Lawn on keyboard and backing vocals, which adds much more depth to the music while still preserving the raw quality to it. The emotion in her music is incredibly real and mature. It’s not emo bullshit about who your ex is taking to the prom. Grove introduced her last few songs by saying, “We got two songs left. One’s sad, the other…well the other’s worse. This one’s about death and leaving your loved ones behind. I wrote it while watching The Golden Girls at 3am.” Yeah, like what the actual fuck, right? Betty White’s going to live forever, isn’t she? Isn’t she?

Grove’s stage presence was unmatched. She sang one song a cappella, in a bar, with fifty or so people in attendance, and the room was absolutely silent aside from her voice. She held everyone’s undivided attention throughout her entire set. I had never seen an artist sing a solo a cappella song at a show like this before, and if I ever do again, I doubt it will hold up to Grove’s performance, which seriously floored me.

Ila Minori followed the amazingly awesome downer that was Emily Grove with a rocking post-punk set. Meredith and I got the chance to talk with Ila Minori at the merch table earlier in the night. She was super chill and friendly and exuded such a great energy. She is currently on tour from San Antonio, having just recently returned from Italy. She had become friends with Emily Grove, who had invited her to perform at this show, and we were grateful that she did because she rocked the house in her set. Ila Minori has a record on the way, but in the meantime, you can get yourself a free preview of the first single I Took the Money.

Unfortunately, I had to get back up to Newark and Meredith had to get back across the Hudson so we could go to our jobs Friday morning to make money to keep up going to badass shows like this, so we weren’t able to catch the rest of the performers, but judging by the sample that we got to listen to, I’m sure the rest of the night was fucking killer. - New Jersey Racket

" I'm certain that we will be hearing about this girl of particular merit ... To be mentioned... Who has ..... The coolness /strength (grinta) to sell and is a valid songwriter..." - Buscadero Magazine

Ila Minori, the new project from the former lead singer of Ledaswan, who some may remember was a swell local alt-rock band during the late aughts, will celebrate the release of its debut album on Thursday night.


Crafted over the past few years, at least in part on sojourns to Europe and the northeast, Traveling with Ghosts, as the record is called, is a deeply intimate album from a gifted songwriter entering a new phase of her musical journey. The album, at least from what we've heard, is a rewarding listen on those terms. - San Antonio Current

Where one fruitful voyage ended, another is soon to begin for Ila Minori. Inspired by her recent trip to Italy, the San Antonio-based singer-songwriter is eager to release her debut album. Brandishing folk-focused intimacy and anecdotal lyricism, Minori’s Traveling with Ghosts depicts the Mediterranean journey across this entrancing collection of original tunes.

Fitting the tone of the album’s title, “The Gritty Streets of Rome” brings a haunting and mesmerizing quality to Traveling with Ghosts and provides the basis for an upcoming video that was shot on location while in the titular city. Eager to begin the next adventure, a kickstarter to further promote Minori’s new record will be launched shortly after Traveling with Ghosts is released.

Catch the CD release party this Wednesday at the Townsend featuring a special acoustic set with local musicians Charles Prewitt (cello) and Alex Salinas (drums). You can also listen to Ila Minori right here on KUTX. - KUTX Austin

Ila Minori è una musicista di San Antonio, in Texas. Sulle montagne del Trentino-Alto Adige ha composto Panoramic view.

Il video di Termini Tv, una web tv dedicata al mondo che ruota intorno alla stazione di Roma. - Internazionale

A Mexican-American musician from my hometown of San Antonio, Texas, Ila Minori has recently shared “Plastic Hearts”, her thundering, supercharged latest single. You can stream it now by visiting her Soundcloud page. Additionally you can find ordering information for CD versions of her Traveling with Ghosts LP by visiting her website. - the Autumn Roses