Javiera Mena

Javiera Alejandra Mena Carrasco (born June 3, 1983) is a Chilean singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer based in Madrid, Spain. She started her musical career in the Chilean indie music scene in 2001 and achieved wider success after the release of her debut studio album Esquemas Juveniles (2006). Her musical style tends to be synthesized electronic sound, although in her career beginnings she made acoustic-oriented songs, accompanied solely by guitar.

Javiera Mena began performing live at the age of 17. Her first concert was held in a classroom of Juan Gómez Millas Campus at the University of Chile. In 2002, she began to study musical composition and musical arrangement at the music academy ProJazz, while also performing at underground parties and clubs. In 2003 she recorded various demos which leaked to the internet shortly thereafter and spread by her friends. In 2004, she performed outside Chile for the first time, opening for Argentine electropop band Entre Ríos in Buenos Aires.

Between 2003 and 2006, she was also part of the Electropop duet Prissa (formerly Tele Visa), along with her friend Francisca Villela. This group released a digital EP entitled Ni Tú Ni Yo.

Javiera's first song officially published was "Sol de Invierno", a duet with her friend and singer Gepe which was included in the 2005 compilation album Panorama Neutral. Another song, "Cámara Lenta", shortly after was included in the soundtrack of Alberto Fuguet’s movie Se arrienda. Her debut album, Esquemas Juveniles, was recorded between 2004 and 2005 and it was produced by Cristian Heyne. The album was first released in 2006 in Argentina by an indie label owned by Entre Ríos, and then was released in Chile and Japan through local indie labels. Her music began to achieve attention worldwide mainly because of the internet, especially through sites such as MySpace. This album was later named the second best album of the 2000s by Latin music website Club Fonograma, while its opening track "Al Siguiente Nivel" was named the best song of the decade.

In 2009, Mena performed in Europe for the first time, as being invited by Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience to be their opening act in their concerts held in Spain and Portugal.

After four years of production and mastering, Mena's second studio album, entitled Mena, was released in October 2010. This album was again produced by Cristian Heyne and took a more dancefloor-oriented style compared to her first work, which was more of a balance between dance with mid-tempo and slow ballads. The album's first single, "Hasta la Verdad", was listed as one of the "Singles of the Week" in the American version of the iTunes Store, and iTunes Mexico named Mena as the breakthrough album of the year. Club Fonograma gave Mena its first, and to date only, perfect 100 rating, and later named it their 2010 album of the year.

In April 2011, Javiera Mena performed live for the first time at Chilean version of Lollapalooza. In May, she toured in Spain and performed live as one of the first Latin American acts of the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. She was praised for her performance and got the attention of the Spanish local press.

In 2012, Mena was featured in El Guincho's single "Novias".