The sounds of Lulacruza are an enlightened combination, hearkening back to the duo’s ancient cultural roots, while simultaneously creating a transmutation of mind and soul through hypnotic rhythms. The duo has taken a modern approach to primeval practices and rituals. Their music is a beautiful intersection of modern, electronic, trance beats, with acoustic, folk sounds often played on indigenous instruments. Forget the mind-altering substances, or hours of meditation. Simply pop in one of the band’s albums, and you’re on a journey to transformation, illumination and innervation.
The members of Lulacruza, Alejandra Ortiz and Luis Maurette, embarked on their U.S. tour earlier this month and will share their harmonic, evocative sounds with us this Sunday, August 2 at Bowie Feathers. Fusion had the chance to talk to Maurette about the transformative power of music, the vibrations of the universe and the band’s dynamic presence and feel.
Is it just you and Alejandra in Lulacruza?
It’s been she and I for ten years. Recently, we’ve incorporated a third person for our live shows, Pablo Paz. We’ve known him for about ten years, through the Buenos Aires music community. When we decided we wanted to add a third person his name popped up, and now we’re playing.
Your new album is titled “Orcas.” Is that orcas as in the whale?
Yes its Orcas like the whale, but also as in the island. We recorded it at Orcas Island in the northwestern U.S., close to Seattle. I think the island’s named after the whales, since that’s where they go. We were invited to record there in 2012 in this studio up on the mountain. We were so inspired there. We were immersed in nature. We’d see deer, eagles.
On your website you say Orcas is your “most intimate album to date” and that it feels “raw and vulnerable.” Why is that?
Well yeah, the songs are very intimate on this album. They talk about love, the dark moment before the sun rises. They’re much more intimate lyrically, and also the arrangements are more sparse, and kind of folkier and more acoustic than some of our prior to this.
What experiences led to the songs you wrote for this album?
Alejandra writes all the lyrics for the songs, and during that time she was going through deep, personal experiences; she had fallen in love, was heart- broken. She had these experiences that she then wrote the lyrics about. Also, during the recording she was five, six months pregnant with her daughter. So for her the recording also was a really incredible experience.
Overall how do your experiences in general contribute to the overall feel of your music?
In part its definitely the music that’s come into our ears throughout our lives. Alejandra was born in Colombia and has spent much of her live there. I was born in Argentina, and my family was more nomadic. I spent time in Mexico as a kid, and in Ecuador, so there’s definitely a connection to local indigenous cultures and folklore, and the music. But we live in a globalized world so we listen to pop and rock and other styles. So I feel like in that sense, our music has been influenced by those things. When we met we were both interested in ritual music—music that is not really meant for entertainment, but has another purpose; music that puts you in a trance or has some sort of community purpose. We hit it off because of that, and since then we’ve done a lot of traveling and researching indigenous cultures and music. So living with those people and making music with them has definitely had a big impact on our music. On the other hand, we feel like modern-day ritual music is electronic music, and that’s another influence. We try to bridge those two worlds—the very ancient with the more contemporary.
Do you feel like you’ve been able to bridge that gap?
I feel that it does. We’ve kind of come to some sort of solution to that question, but that solution’s always different. There’s not just one way to do it. Our first album ten years ago sounds very different than our last album but the core intentions of them are the same. But usually I think the question posed is more important than the solution, you know, where it takes you, rather than saying ‘Oh, this is the answer.’
Music is the one thing that binds us as human beings. And these rituals you speak of also rely heavily on music. In many ancient cultural rites of passage, music and dance play a huge role.
That’s exactly what we draw from: the possibility of music being this transformative agent. As you said like in certain ceremonies, you can see it, you can feel it. Also, if you look at certain sciences, like quantum physics, you see that the vibrations you’re putting out there are affecting other vibrations. Music, I feel, is that, but amplified. So there’s the possibility of creating something that moves people emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and physically. You can make people dance. You can make people cry. You can make people suddenly have an epiphany. I think it really ends up as something that’s not in one’s own hands though. One ends up being like a channel and what happens is what happens. It’s beyond one’s own control. Music has that potential and capability and that’s what fascinates us and drives us. That’s what we strive to do with every album. That’s what we strive to do at every show.
In the last ten years have you seen there’s a particular demographic or culture that’s more receptive to your music?
I think anybody from any age or culture can feel moved by it. I feel maybe there’s a big part of culture now that’s trying to look to their roots for some sort of meaning, and people who are involved in those ceremonies and rituals are looking in nature and ancient cultures for deeper meaning. Those are the people who are music really resonates with. It could be someone 60 years old, 20 years old, from the U.S., like a hippie or an anthropologist. I don’t think it’s a specific age or place, but more a specific interest.
I saw on your bio that you’ve lived in different places “exploring universal principles that connect different cultures.” Can you expand a little more on those principles that connect us?
We did this project in 2011 where we traveled and tried to understand the relationship between place and music. This really touches on those universal principles because in my experience, sometimes I hear a huge similarity between music that was done on the high plains of Peru and music that was done on the high plains of Tibet. Or similarities between jungle music from Africa and jungle music from Latin America. So we were trying to understand those similarities, because those people from those cultures didn’t necessarily communicate with each other, so maybe there’s something that’s more intrinsic to our human nature and in an ecosystem. We hear specific things so we make specific music, like maybe the wind sounds a certain way, so the melodies sound a certain way. There are things that are human that go beyond culture, and music is a good way of decoding that.
They say love is the universal language, but I think its music.
Music is love.
While listening to some of your stuff, I notice a very trancey element in a lot of it. Does that go back to what you were saying about a modern take on those ritualistic elements?
We want to make music that’s not just entertainment. We want to take the listener somewhere different. So repetition in music, and repetition in trance-like states are from early times, a way to transcend to a different consciousness or a different understanding. Our music definitely uses that for that purpose, the same by breathing a certain way or dancing for long periods of time, you can sometimes get to different planes of consciousness.
What about the ambient jungle sounds you incorporate into some of the music?
When we travel we always record the sounds we hear. We feel like it’s a sort of sonic photograph, almost like when we listen to it, we can close our eyes and transport ourselves back there. The way we compose we try to find a setting or place for each song to happen. We have to treat the song like it’s an organism or ecosystem, and the field recordings are one way we’ve done that.
So switching gears, have you guys played in El Paso before and what are your expectations?
We’ve never been to El Paso. I lived in Mexico City for many years and I feel like Mexico’s a second home. We’ve played in Tijuana, and we know about the conflicts on the border, but we also know what a creative place it is. We didn’t expect Tijuana to be such a creative place and so full of artists and so many amazing people. We’re super excited to go to El Paso. We just hope people come to our show. Whenever you go to a new place, it’s harder to get the word out.
theconfluencegroup.com/Lulacruza_tour/
Photos: Courtesy of Lulacruza