Cathartic Sounds from South America
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Cathartic Sounds from South America | norient.com 31 Oct 2021 04:16:14
Cathartic Sounds from South
America
M I X TA P E by Chico Dub
While the world is on pause, the music plays on. Listen to a
wild Norient mixtape by Chico Dub, curator of the In/Out
Festival. It reflects the marginalized music scenes in South
America affected by the coronavirus, from endangered local
street musicians to native communities, and transgender
activist groups.
The idea behind this mixtape is to showcase a glimpse of contemporary
South American experimental music that was showcased at the In/Out
Festival, from club aesthetics to experimental music, from electroacoustic,
ambient, and noise to improv.
Many chosen artists participated in the festival. I don’t intend to cover the
entire universe that happens in this gigantic, chaotic, exciting, and seething
part of the world, but it is undoubtedly an invitation to further immersion. If it
piques your interest, the game has been won. Even if recorded on software, it
is an old style mixtape: Done in an improvised way, in a single take, assuming
and not hiding the mixing errors.
1.
Artist: Pininga
Track: Freakção
Album: V/A – C LACRAIA ESTIVESSE VIVA (Tormenta, 2020)
Simultaneously building global connections with Staycore, GHE20G0TH1K,
Parkingstone, Hiedrah, and N.A.A.F.I., and local ties with artists Linn da
Quebrada and Teto Preto, the Tormenta Collective co-creator Eduardo
Pininga – now calling himself EPX – stands as a crucial actor in the Brazilian
contemporary club culture.
This track was taken from a great introduction to what’s going on in the
country. C LACRAIA ESTIVESSE VIVA is a 50 plus collaborative album, for
which all the proceeds go to LGBTQI+ NGOs and Brazilian marginalized
projects.
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2.
Artist: Ventura Profana y Podeserdesligado
Track: Eu Não Vou Morrer
Album: TRAQUEJOS PENTENCOSTAIS PARA MATAR O SENHOR (self
released, 2020)
«I’m not going to die» sings Ventura Profana, a composer, evangelist singer,
writer, performer, and visual artist raised in Baptist temples in Brazil. Calling
herself a missionary, her practice is rooted in researching the implications
and methodologies of deuteronomism in Brazil and abroad, through the
spread of neo-Pentecostal churches. Production duties belong to Pode Ser
Desligado, a Live PA project by artist and performer Jhonnata Vicente that
questions the limited access of Black people to equipment to produce music
in Brazil.
3.
Artist: Radio Diaspora & Ba Kimbuta
Track: A Prova De Balas
Album: Radio Diaspora & Ba Kimbuta (Sê-lo, 2018)
Radio Diaspora is a free jazz/improv duo formed by Romulo Alexis on the
trumpet and Wagner Ramos on the drums. This track («A Prova de Balas»
means «Bullet Proof») is a collaborative piece with rapper, musician, and
Black movement activist Ba Kimbuta. The link with In/Out comes from the
Sê-lo netlabel, an offshoot of Bahia’s CMC series on contemporary music
events.
4.
Artist: Tantão & Os Fita
Track: Piorou
Album: Piorou (QTV, 2020)
One of Rio de Janeiro’s highlights, Tantão & Os Fita combines the minimal
raw and rascous poetry of the underground icon Tantão (those affiliated with
Brazil’s post punk might remember him from Black Future lelend) with the
crooked punk beats from duo Os Fita formed by Abel Duarte and Cainã
Bomilcar. Another joint not directly linked to the festival (the QTV label was
born from Audio Rebel venue), the Tantão & Os Fita Live show is the exact
catharsis you want for yourself in a free COVID-19 world.
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5.
Artist: Gaona-Garcı́a-Vargas-Garcı́a-Valencia
Track: Correspondencia II
Album: Medio día en tu orilla (TVL, 2020
This track is taken from «medio día en tu orilla», an In/Out Festival project
now transformed into an album. Proposed by Colombia’s Festival Mujeres en
la Música Nueva, it is a collaborative exploration of communication,
improvisation, and performing at a distance.
6.
Artist: Ale Hop
Track: The Life Of Insects
Album: The Life Of Insects (Buh, 2020)
We didn’t have anything coming from Peru in the festival and that was total
shame. That’s why I chose to include a track that could represent such a
broad, rich, and eclectic scene. Based in Berlin, Alejandra Cárdenas, aka Ale
Hop, is probably – together with another Berlin resident, the Colombian
Lucretia Dalt – my favorite electroacoustic artist with pop sensibilities.
7.
Artist: Ana Maria Romano
Track: El Suelo Desde El Viento
Album: VA – AUSTRAL (NÓTT, 2019)
Continuing into more atmospheric territory, now comes the legend Ana Maria
Romano, one of the most important composers in South America. She is also
incredibly fluent in the questions and intersections between gender and
sexualities from feminist perspectives, mostly perhaps through En Tiempo
Real, a feminist platform focused on artistic, educational, and editorial
processes around the encounters between sound and technology.
8.
Artist: WRACK, Aggromance & Desdel Barro
Track: Cadena Riddim
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Album: Travesía (Hiedrah, 2020)
Through an open call for works, In/Out got many incredible proposals that
unfortunately we could not include. One of those came from Argentina’s
Hiedrah, who, like Tormenta and Salviatek, combines all kinds of roots
rhythms with global club influences. They say that they «promote the
singularity of identity and cultural minorities in Latin America in order to
create a new libertarian policy concerning the joy of bodies. We are not the
same: We are boosted by our differences».
9.
Artist: Rasenk & Pobvio
Track: Anty
Album: Latido (Salviatek, 2020)
Uruguayan Producers Pobvio (Felipe Lobato) and Lechuga Zafiro (Pablo de
Vargas) are Salviatek’s dons, Montevideo’s label and party that references
the past while facing the future. Their mix of cumbia, reggaeton, baile funk,
techno, and the local candombe rhythm aims to decolonize the music and its
associated Latino culture.
10.
Artist: Emma Harumi
Track: Muxe
Album: Tanabata (self released, 2020)
I discovered both Emma Harumi and CNTV (check track #15 on the mixtape)
after the In/Out collaboration with Argentinian Plataforma Lodo. Emma
Harumi is a producer, DJ, multi-instrumentalist, and trans activist born in Mar
del Plata, Argentina, now living in San Telmo, Buenos Aires.
«Muxe» was taken from Tanabata, a compilation of old records produced
between 2015–17. The name is a reference to a Japanese festival originating
from the Chinese Qixi Festival. Both celebrate the annual meeting of the stars
Orihime and Hikoboshi, which represent, in the album concept, the female
and male energies.
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10.
Artist: Genosidra
Track: Ruin
Album: Ruin (TVL, 2020)
Carlos Eduardo Quebrada Vásquez, aka Genosidra, is a Colombian musician
born in Bogotá, now settled in Buenos Aires. Since 2009, he has been a
relevant figure in Argentine and Colombian contemporary creative music and
avant-jazz scene. Using electric bass, cassette recorder, and voice, the core
of Quebrada’s sound is the search for an identity.
Labels are always a great primer for new discoveries. One of my favorites is
Quebrada’s TVL REC, a record label with more than 15 albums published,
encompassing experimental and new music by artists from Latin America
and a monthly series of concerts since 2016 in Roseti, one of the most
significant venues in Buenos Aires.
11.
Artist: Elpueblodechina
Track: Microconcierto Vol. XIV
Single: Acéfalo, 2020
Acéfalo Records is a production label and company, created in 2001 by the
Chilean musician Luis Toto Alvarez. After initially publishing its own projects,
the company went on to collaborate with other artists and also to develop
projects, productions, tours, residencies, and the Acéfalo Festival.
Recorded Live in Acéfalo Microconciertos series, here is an extract from
noisemaker, sound artist, and cultural activist Alejandra Pérez, aka
Elpueblodechina, who is featured in CAB’s In/Out project.
12.
Artist: Badsista
Track: Soca Sem Parar feat. Mc Morena
Single: self released, 2020
Back to the dance side of things, (Rafaela) Badsista is one of the most
prominent club-baile-funk infused producers from Brazil and South America.
Also tied with star Linn da Quebrada, she has been DJing everywhere, from
homecity São Paulo to Berlin’s Berghain and Jinja, Uganda, at the Nyege
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Nyege Festival. On this track, Badsista gives a different take on «Soca Sem
Parar» (the original is by Brega Funk), that is a slightly reggaeton-ish new
version of the Rio/São Paulo baile funk rhythm.
13.
Artist: Verraco
Track: +Decodification__
Album: Grial (Insurgentes, 2020)
Programmed between Medellín and Barcelona over the course of two years,
this piece (and the whole Grial album) explores the concepts of mestizo and
its «impurity». Rejecting the notion of a singular Latinx musical identity,
Verraco paints his own vision of South American IDM, blending perreo, jungle
ambiance, and mountainous Andes braindance.
14.
Artist: CNTV
Track: Movimiento 1 – Apertura
Album: Hipocampo (self released, 2017)
I wanted to include two ambient soundscapes since the genre has been in its
heyday since the late 1970s. The first is by Emiliano Montenegro (A.K.A
CNTV), who developed a concept close to The Caretaker (Leyland James
Kirby) one: The conception of memory and the recesses of a person.
15.
Artist: Lem
Track: Abyssus Abyssum Invocat
Album: En el fin del mundo, hasta el fin del mundo (EMA, 2020)
The second one is by Lem, an ambient/post rock Chilean duo formed by
Ottavio Berbakow and Oscar Burotto, active since the late 1990s. Together
with two others – Juan Pablo Claro and Marcelo Buscaglia – they created
EMA, a production and booking company that is now a label.
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16.
Artist: Abenç oada
Track: Playing Victims In A Mala Terra
Single: Self released, 2017
Ambient can be so beautiful and beatific, but we needed to finish things in a
more violent way and as a warning sign. Abençoada is the more dancefloor
oriented moniker from Bartira, who collaborated with the CMC project within
In/Out.
The Norient Special «Promise of Catharsis» is based on performances at the
South American «In/Out Festival» that took place online between September 2
and 6 in 2020. It is funded by Pro Helvetia South America.
→ Published on March 11, 2021
→ Last updated on April 22, 2021
Chico Dub is the curator of the «In/Out» and «Novas Frequências» festivals, and a
retired dj from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
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