Jaibaná

A significant aspect of this project has been research into the location of the recording - the Colombian Chocó department, one of the rainiest regions on Earth. With dense rainforest and flooding, the terrain is uncompromising and one of the most isolated regions of Colombia, with no major infrastructure due to underdeveloped roads, yet it is one of the most richly biodiverse zones on the planet.

Since the recording was made, there has been ongoing desecration of the land from both violent conflict and extraction of its gold leading to enforced displacement, cultural disruption, poverty and lack of healthcare and resources. The more I learnt about this volatile status in Chocó in relation to both its natural and violent political climate, the more I felt a responsibility to understand the impact on the Indigenous communities such as the Emberá, as well as the historical roots of the AfroColombian diaspora. 

The dense and remote jungles have historically provided refuge for African slaves escaping from gold mines and plantations. This dichotomy of the land as both a place of refuge and isolation inhospitable to settlement offered dynamic scope for where this could be taken as a sonic journey of nature and its wilderness doing what it does. This called to mind the concept of the genius loci, Latin for the spirit of a place and the indigenous belief in Animism, the living soul of natural phenomena.

My reading around this subject led me to how the elders and shamans of the region are dedicated to the preservation of their ancestral cultural heritage and traditions. Natural forces such as rain are associated with energies called “Jai” and a Jaibaná (shaman) is the intermediary who interacts with these energies to restore balance in the natural world. 
 
The intensity of the rain in the recording evokes a sense of the water element unequivocally dominating the land. 
I wanted to remain sympathetic to this and imagine the nuances within the interaction of this force of nature with the land itself and to consider what we may hear if we were inside the underworld of the forest, beneath the canopy of trees. 

We were inspired to consider the torrential rain and wind interacting with an imaginary Jaibaná who summons a call and response to the forest catalysing a sequence of entrainment with the drum and the heartbeat of the forest, as if a natural electrical current has been ignited. 

The final composition contains both analogue and digital methods. Live recordings of gong, rattles, singing bowls, hand drum, vocal overtoning and other sound effects such as insects and wing sounds created with paper. In shamanic tradition, the shaman's drum is described as being the horse that journey on, so I had this in mind with the drumming as a gateway into this communication with the elements. 

Granular sampler 
Modular synths 
Reaktor/ Steam Pipe 
Bastl Leploop 
Microgranny 2
Main software / Ableton Live 
Panning and filtering in mixing process to create 3D immersion. 

This piece was created in honour of the land and its Indigenous population and to Jonathan Ambache & Richard Saunarez Smith for their contribution to ethnographic sound history. 
María Christofi (The Sound Apothecary) composition and analogue instruments/voice. Jules Dickens (Abstract Source Music) digital sequences and mastering. 

Torrential rain in Colombia reimagined by The Sound Apothecary and Abstract Source.

———
Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds