Saiko

When a huge band becomes the house you walk out of, there are two paths: stay in the shadow of what it was, or build something of your own. The musicians who formed Saiko chose the second. Coming out of La Ley, they put together a new project with a different look, a different sound and, above all, a different voice: that of Denisse Malebrán, who arrived through an audition and ended up as one of the most recognisable singers in Chilean music.

A new beginning out of a great school

The story starts in 1998, and it does not start in Chile. Luciano Rojas, bassist of La Ley, left the band that year, after Vértigo. He ran into Rodrigo Aboitiz, keyboard player and founder of La Ley, in Mexico City, and between the two of them they began to imagine a different project. They were joined by Iván Delgado, a saxophonist and keyboard player who had also passed briefly through La Ley as a vocalist, before Beto Cuevas, and who is listed as a co-founder of Saiko.

They carried in their bones the training of one of the best bands on the continent, but they wanted to explore something else: a more electronic, more pop sound, with layers of synthesisers and a sensibility of its own. The only thing missing was the voice.

The audition

They went looking for it with a casting call, and settled it on 24 May 1999. Among the candidates were names that would later become known along other paths. The one chosen was Denisse Malebrán, who did not come from fame, though she was not a complete unknown either: she had sung in Turbomente and in Polaroid. She has told the story without any grandeur: "I went out of sheer curiosity, I never imagined I would get it".

She turned out to be the piece that gave Saiko its definitive identity. Her voice — warm, expressive, full of character — became the band's trademark. That a group's most distinctive element should come out of an open audition, and not from friendship or the usual circle, says something about how they were thinking.

A sound of their own

With that mix of rock, pop and electronica, Saiko debuted in 1999 with Informe Saiko. The first single was "La fábula"; then came "Cuando miro en tus ojos" and "Happy Hour", which ended up being the best remembered from that album. In 2001 came Campos finitos, with "Limito con el sol", which would be their only number one in Chile and is now a classic of Chilean pop, and in 2004 Las horas, with "Lo que mereces" and its hypnotic bassline.

Album by album, Saiko built a coherent, elegant sonic world: songs about love, misunderstanding and everyday feelings, wrapped in electronic atmospheres. They did not make noise for the sake of noise; they made pop with craft.

A band with a history, not a straight line

Saiko is usually told as a smooth continuity, and it was not. Denisse Malebrán left the band at the end of 2006 for her solo career and said goodbye at a concert in April 2007; between 2007 and 2012 the voice was that of Marcela Thais, who wrote the album Volar in its entirety. Malebrán returned in 2012. Aboitiz, for his part, came and went more than once and is not in the current line-up.

None of that takes anything away from them, quite the opposite. A band that goes through a change of singer and finds itself again ten years later has done something harder than standing still. They kept releasing records — Volar, Trapecio, Lengua muerta, Drama — and in 2025 they received the Premio a la Música Nacional Presidente de la República, Chile's national music prize, in the popular music category, the greatest institutional recognition of their career.

What to remember

Saiko proved that great things can be born out of a great band, if there is talent and an appetite for risk. Coming out of La Ley, instead of living off that prestige they built a project with a personality of its own and gave Chilean music one of its best-loved voices.

They also left a lesson about how things get built. The piece that ended up defining them did not come from the inner circle or from the scene: it came from an open audition that someone turned up to "out of sheer curiosity". The best way to honour a great school is not to imitate it, but to use what you learned to look somewhere else. That, exactly, is what Saiko did.

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Sources

Saiko is a Chilean pop rock and synth-pop band founded in 1998 by Luciano Rojas, the bassist who left La Ley that year after the album "Vértigo", and Rodrigo Aboitiz, keyboard player and founder of La Ley; the two met in Mexico City. Iván Delgado, a saxophonist and keyboard player who had briefly been part of La Ley as a vocalist before Beto Cuevas, is also listed as a co-founder; he died on 6 December 2018. Luciano Rojas was not a founder of La Ley: he joined in 1988, a year after it formed. Vocalist Denisse Malebrán was chosen through auditions settled on 24 May 1999; she had previously sung in the groups Turbomente and Polaroid. The debut album, "Informe Saiko", came out in 1999; its first single was "La fábula", followed by "Cuando miro en tus ojos" and "Happy Hour". "Limito con el sol", from the album "Campos finitos" (2001), was their only number one in Chile. "Lo que mereces" was the first single from "Las horas" (August 2004). Denisse Malebrán left the band at the end of 2006 and said goodbye at a concert at the Teatro Teletón on 28 April 2007; Marcela Thais was the vocalist between 2007 and 2012 and wrote the album "Volar" (2007) in its entirety; Malebrán returned in March 2012. Rodrigo Aboitiz stepped away from the group around 2002, returned in 2012 and is not part of the current line-up. The band has also released "Trapecio" (2013), "Lengua muerta" (2017) and "Drama" (2023). In 2025 it received the Premio a la Música Nacional Presidente de la República in the popular music category; it had previously won the APES award in 2001 for "Campos finitos" and a Premio Altazor nomination in 2005 for "Las horas". Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Cooperativa, Radio Concierto and other coverage.