“I would dress up as Wally and give tours to families and kids,” he remembers with a laugh. “It was great, because I got to know the city incredibly well. I’d walk for hours, then spend the rest of the day partying and drinking, probably way too much. But I also wrote lots of new songs.”

Back in Denver, Chris looked for a moniker that reflected the evocative and subtly rebellious musical concepts percolating in his head, and settled on kiltro – a word used in Chile for stray dogs or mutts. He then teamed up with bassist Will Parkhill and drummer Michael Devincenzi, later inviting Fez García to join the band as an additional percussionist on Kiltro’s live gigs.

“I wanted to do a project mixing different styles and aesthetics,” he says. “Valparaíso is my favorite city in the world and will always influence my music. There were street dogs everywhere, and I’m a mutt myself.”

Titled Underbelly, Kiltro’s sophomore album crystallizes those dreams and experiences into a post-rock manifesto of dazzling beauty. Its songs combine touches of shoegaze, ambient and neo-psychedelia with the soulful transcendence of South American folk – the purity of stringed instruments, supple syncopated percussion and elusive melodies that define the works of Latin American legends such as Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara and Atahualpa Yupanqui.