Ale Hop and Laura Robles manifest their mutant reimagining of standard Afro-Peruvian music with a dystopian vision in which past and future realestates combine.
With ‘Son de los diablos’, Berlin-based, Peruvian artists Ale Hop and Laura Robles get the skills of filmmaker Lauren Pringle to manifest their mutant reimagining of conventional Afro-Peruvian music. Taken from their launching album, Agua Dulce, called after the most popular beach in Lima, the city in which both artists grew up, ‘Son de los diablos,’ is an apocalyptic mixture of electrical guitar, electronicdevices and a self-built electrical cajón, a percussion instrument comingfrom from seaside Peru that was developed from wood fruit boxes by Black servants as a reaction to the prohibiting of foot drums throughout the end of the Spanish colonial age in the 19th century.
“For lotsof years I have played Afro-Peruvian rhythms such as Landó, Festejo, Tondero or Son de los diablos. As some of the components of this standard music made me unpleasant, such as the normal outfits, the somewhat macho choreographies or the required smile gestures of the artists, I have constantly attempted to adjust them to a kind that was closer to my individual tastes, notified by improvised music, jazz and the usage of results in my sound,” discusses Laura Robles. “These rhythms have endupbeing ossified nowadays,” Ale Hop continues, “heard in Peruvian folklore reveals, and on the ‘global music’ circuit, however our desire is to experiment and do something more extreme with them, linking to the instruments more radical past.”
“We were fortunate to have worked with Natisa Exocé Kasongo, an unbelievable efficiency artist who made the video dive, shout and circulation with fire and grace. The drum endedupbeing our procedure of focus and we looked at the roots of the track connecting to Afro-Peruvian history and dance,” states Lauren Pringle of the climatic visual. “I understood we didn’t desire the video to be set in any specific area however rather a future dystopian area where we integrate past and future truths. For me, I likewise might relate this to a modern world where technological artefacts suppress the spirit.”
‘Son de los diablos’ is taken from Agua Dulce, which will be launched bymeansof Buh Records on April 7. You can discover Ale Hop on Instagram, Bandcamp and at her site. You can discover Laura Robles on Instagram.
Son de los diablos Credits:
Music – Ale Hop & Laura Robles
Director – Lauren Pringle
DOP – Tebbe Schoeningh
Performer – Natisa Exocé Kasongo
Set Design – Marcel Schon
Editor – Ilja Siebert
Colour Grade – Maxime Demartin
Costume Design – Diane Esnault
Producer – Kiki Ramos Sörvik
Watch next: Fact Residency – Gabriel Massan