What does Jorge Luis Borges sound like? Manongo Mujica releases album inspired by the writer

What would a soundscape linked to the author “Ficciones” sound like? Manongo Mujica Perhaps he is the musician who can explain it with the greatest authority: “I have always listened to the literature of “Borges as music”, Explain. Indeed, our notable composer and percussionist finds that the greatness of the Argentine writer goes beyond his literature. “Its cosmic vastness means that its stories are located beyond time, current events and trends.”, it states. It is, as the musician explains, a round poetic universe, which integrates music, poetry and sacred geography. “Stories like “The Aleph” or “The Circular Ruins” always had an enormous influence on me. If music or art is fiction, Borges takes this fiction to a metaphysical plane,” he explains.

Originally published in 1940, in the literary magazine Sur, the story “The Circular Ruins” tells the story of a gray and anonymous man, who tries to create another through sleep in the unanimous night. What sounds can a story about infinity, the primitive legend of the golem and the process of literary creation suggest to us? For Mujica, it is a variation, a translation to the Peruvian pre-Hispanic past, from Caral to Chanquillo or Túcume, also defined as circular ruins. The Lima musician wonders if Borges would not have written this story as a silent tribute to our first cultures. “No one has ever heard it like that!” he exclaims.

Mujica refers to the mythical and tribal Borges, alien to his bookish image that has been imposed in the media. “I believe that we are all multiple mirrors. The mythical Borges is not the Borges of the compadritos, of the labyrinths or of the Arabian Nights. “I am interested in the mythical Borges, the one who invites you to question, through poetry, your role on earth.” warns.

Thus, Borges’s story triggered his most recent album, “Ritual Sonoro para Ruinas Circulares”, worked with his Norwegian colleague, the electronic musician and producer Terje Evensen, the duo responsible for the previous “Paracas ritual”, a notable example of soundscape. This work continues this path also involving Gabriela Ezeta on vocals, Fil Uno on cello, and her sons Cristóbal on the string arrangements and Daniel and Gabriel on percussion.

For the dissemination of the album released by Buh Records, stages have also been thought of as concentric circles. The first stage, introducing the music from the new album on the networks towards the end of October. A limited edition of 300 ‘LPs’ will soon be released, accompanied by the presentation of a short film directed by filmmaker Victor Checa. A work filmed in archaeological temples on the north coast, which will be presented in the Robles Godoy room of the Ministry of Culture as part of the Lima Alterna Film Festival, this October 18.

For Mujica, exchanging messages and Zoom sessions between Peru and Norway, composing the songs for this album was like putting together a puzzle, or rather, composing a dream. “I wanted to achieve a dreamlike sound in this work. The fantastic thing about Borges’ story is that it is about the process of creating a man from another man’s dream. And when the first man wakes up, he realizes that it is someone else’s dream. It is a metaphor of creation, but to infinity. I wanted the sound to have this circular nature to enter this labyrinth. Circularity is a kind of major symbol, which is in the sunken squares of our ancestral cultures, in the drum, in the Moon, in ourselves rotating around it.”explains the musician.