Mourn, from left: Carla Pérez Vas, Leia Rodríguez Bueno, Jazz Rodríguez Bueno, and Antonio Postius Echeverría. Photo by Albert Manau.

Mourn: "Otitis" (via SoundCloud)

Mourn frontwoman Jazz Rodríguez Bueno doesn’t need to think long and hard about the most hurtful thing anyone has ever said to her. Three years ago, when she was 15, a boy she was seeing broke things off by telling her: “When we started dating, I knew you were very immature—I thought you would change, but you haven't, so I leave you.”

It’s telling that “immature” stung, because Mourn will probably have to get used to people fixating on whether they act their age for at least a little while. Three of the quartet’s members, Bueno, guitarist/vocalist Carla Pérez Vas, and drummer Antonio Postius Echeverría, are 18, and their bassist, Bueno’s sister Leia, is 15. The Catalonian band’s self-titled debut was originally released by Barcelona’s Sones Records in September, and Brooklyn indie powerhouse Captured Tracks has since signed on to further distribute the record, which is out now digitally and will get a vinyl release on February 17.

Mourn: "Silver Gold" (via SoundCloud)

The album is a chiseled mass of stoic punk and muscular indie rock, but for all of its sonic austerity, Mourn is still very much a product of impatient youth: Its 10 songs were recorded straight to tape in a two-day stretch in an attempt to recreate the group's live spontaneity. (Vas simply calls this process “more sincere.”) The songs themselves owe their creation to the wandering of teenage minds—the zombie fantasy “Your Brain Is Made of Candy” was written while Bueno was “bored and angry” in class, while their first-ever song, “Boys Are Cunts”, was thought-up in the shower.

Growing up, Bueno’s father Ramón, who records tasteful, melodic rock as the New Raemon, provided her with a musical homeschooling, introducing her to the likes of PJ Harvey and Patti Smith. “A lot of people know him, but he's not a superstar,” says Bueno of her dad. “I saw him playing a lot of concerts and wanted to be like him—since I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to do that.”

Regardless of their precocity, Mourn’s youth instantly distinguishes them. On one hand, you want to respect this group of teens by holding them up to the same standards that you would for any band. Then again, it’s hard not to bring up their age, which informs just about every logistic of our interview, which requires a break from their Sunday night activities of homework procrastination and alleviating boredom by making panellets, a Catalan staple they fumble to describe as “potato balls with sugar.” Vas and Bueno are in the pre-collegiate, two-year portion of the Spanish school system, where Bueno studies animation and Vas is taking on photography. Their goals are modest and very achievable: “If we can live making music and having fun, that would be nice,” “I want to meet the lead singer of [Captured Tracks label mates] DIIV—I don't know his name, but he reminds me of Kurt Cobain.”

Most of all, they still live with their parents, have never toured outside their city, have never been to the United States, and this is their first press interview in English.

Pitchfork: Who was the first artist that made you identify with punk rock?

Jazz Rodríguez Bueno and Carla Pérez Vas: [in unison] PJ Harvey.

JRB: When I was 14, my father was listening to her and he said, "You'd like this!" And I did.

Pitchfork: Why do you think he said that?

JRB: She was what I wanted to be because she doesn't sing like, [high pitched pop voice] "Oh yeah, la la la!" She screams when she has to scream and she plays very well. I just love the power of what she does.

Pitchfork: While the two of you bonded over ‘90s indie rock, what were most of your schoolmates listening to?

JRB: Here in Catalan, there's a lot of bands who play cumbia and ska, and most of the people listen to that kind of music.

CPV: They listen to music that doesn't make you think about anything. But in the underground scene, there are a lot of people listening to local bands, which is very cool.

JRB: There's a lot of garage and hardcore bands here in Catalan, and they are all connected. So we started playing shows and meeting people.

CPV: You start going to concerts because a friend tells you the band is cool, and then you discover two more bands there. It's awesome.

Pitchfork: Do you think English is more effective than Spanish when it comes to writing in this style of music?

JRB: We started writing in English because we listened to a lot of music in English. Here, if you write in English, people will listen to you, but they won't understand what you're saying. People have the image that if you sing in English, it's more professional and cooler, but I don't think it's the only language you can express yourself in.

Pitchfork: “Boys Are Cunts” is the first song you wrote together—is that based on a true story?

JRB: More or less.

Pitchfork: There are also songs on the record called “Marshall” and “Jack”, are they based on people you know?

CPV: "Marshall" is based on a boy called Marcel, who’s an ex-boyfriend of our friend.

JRB: He was an asshole. "Jack" is based on a mix of people...

CPV: ... that we hate.

Pitchfork: Are these people aware that these songs are about them?

JRB: Marshall knows. He hated us before that, so now he hates us more.

Pitchfork: When did you sense that Mourn was generating interest overseas?

CPV: [Sones Records] passed the record onto [Captured Tracks owner] Mike [Sniper], who loved it. Then Mike wrote an email to us, and we were like, “What? This cannot be possible.”

JRB: I thought it was a joke. I didn't know about Captured Tracks so I had to look them up on the Internet.

CPV: And we saw that Mac DeMarco was on that label.

JRB: And it was like, “Whoa.”

Pitchfork: How have your friends in the local scene reacted to all of this?

JRB: They are more excited than us, because we don't even believe it’s real yet.