Glass mastered CD. Packaged in clear vinyl sleeve with folded insert on 300gr matt offset paper. Includes an additional art card on 300gr matt coated satin paper. Limited edition of 200 hand-numbered copies.
Includes unlimited streaming of Merua
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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Merua is a magic place for the Garifunas, and also one of awe. Only those considered as initiated go through this sanctuary. It’s a refuge for the spirits of the Ancestors from the beliefs of this mixed culture that finds its roots both in Africa and South America. It’s a plot of dense jungle, a snakes’ nest, intact despite its small size and the fact that its perimeter is occupied by humans. A perimeter composed of two villages (Triunfo de la Cruz and La Ensenada), the mangrove and the lake at its feet, and the sea that borders it for almost half of its circumference.
The beliefs of the buyeis (spirit leaders of the Garifuna traditions) are among other things a blend of African voodoo and shamanism stemming from the Amazonian basin.
To narrate Merua, I’ve thus drawn on my memories: the experience of my encounter with the Amazonian shamanism. Or maybe, it’d be more correct to say that to tell my Amazonian experiences, I use the matter and feelings of those trips into Garifuna land.
The shamanic experience (as I lived it) is uncomfortable, intoxicating, powerful and uncompromising. One can’t go through it with hands in the pockets, like a tourist. It takes its roots into the depths of our body and being to reveal us. From the darkness and its acceptation surges the light, the understanding. The experience is all but calm, and it’s nonetheless a way to reach a deep peace. The grace is offered to the one who dares to face his fears, questions his own systems of beliefs. Getting through the illusions of who we believe to be to find ourselves. The trance is demanding. It’s a leap into the unknown. The one that hides itself in what we already believe to know about.
Merua, the sound piece, is a reflection of that passage. We think we hear something. But it’s something else that is at play into the sounds and the listening experience, something that defies our perceptions. If we don’t pay attention we only hear a succession of exotic landscapes. In fact movements of forces bind and unbind, interweave till the loss of landmarks. Elements used are natural, the way they are given to be heard is not. The sound matter becomes energy. Manipulation of energies creates a new matter across the fog of our perceptions.
For that, it’d have been much easier to start from abstract elements (the use of field recordings orientates necessarily the listening). Though, on the contrary, I’ve chosen to use this experience in Honduras and the sounds I brought back from these two trips on the spot. It’s over there, at the foot of Merua and its surroundings that I found back into my body, into my guts, the sensations I encountered in Amazonia.
This composition is a transcription attempt of an experience lived in a specific place and at a given moment via the use of a sound matter coming from another space, recorded 7 years later, thus with an acoustic color, fragrance which is the one of this Caribbean coast.
All sounds were field recorded at different venues on the North Coast of Honduras, between the cities of Tela and La Ceiba in August 2012.
(Frédéric Nogray, September 2014 – translation supervised by Daniel Crokaert)
~
Merua est un lieu magique pour les Garifunas, et lieu de crainte à la fois. Seuls ceux considérés comme initiés pénètrent dans ce sanctuaire. C’est un refuge pour les esprits des anciens de ce peuple issu du métissage entre des esclaves africains évadés (les nègres marrons) et des autochtones Caraïbes et Arawaks. C’est une parcelle de jungle dense, un nid à serpents, in-touchée malgré sa petite taille et le fait que tout le pourtour ait été investi par l’homme. Un pourtour composé de deux villages (Triunfo de la Cruz et La Ensenada), la mangrove et le lac qui s’étirent à ses pieds, et la mer qui la borde sur près de la moitié de sa circonférence.
Les croyances des buyés (chefs spirituels des traditions garifuna) sont entre autres un mélange de vaudou de l’ouest africain et de chamanisme issu du bassin amazonien de l’Amérique du Sud.
Pour raconter Merua j’ai donc puisé dans mes souvenirs, le vécu de ma rencontre avec le chamanisme amazonien. Mais il serait plus exact de dire que pour parler de mes expériences amazoniennes j’utilise la matière et les sensations de ces voyages en terre Garifuna.
L’expérience chamanique (du moins telle que je l’ai rencontrée) est inconfortable, enivrante, puissante et intransigeante. On ne la traverse pas les mains dans les poches, en touriste. Elle prend dans les entrailles même de notre corps et de notre être pour nous révéler. Des ténèbres et de leur acceptation surgit la lumière, la compréhension. L’expérience est tout sauf paisible, c’est pourtant un chemin qui peut nous inviter à expérimenter des états de calme profond. La grâce est offerte à celui qui ose traverser ses peurs, ses propres systèmes de croyances, traverser les illusions de ce que nous croyons être afin de se retrouver. La transe est exigeante. C’est un saut dans l’inconnu. Celui qui se cache dans ce que nous croyions déjà si bien connaître.
Merua, la pièce sonore, est un reflet de cette traversée. Nous pensons entendre quelque chose mais c’est autre chose qui se joue dans les sons et dans l’écoute. Quelque chose qui se joue de nos perceptions. Là où nous pourrions, si nous n’y prêtions pas attention, entendre seulement une succession de paysages sonores exotiques, ce sont des mouvements de force qui se lient, se délient, s’entremêlent jusqu’à la perte de repères. Si les éléments sont naturels, la manière de les donner à entendre ne l’est plus. La matière devient énergie. La manipulation des énergies créé une nouvelle matière à travers le brouillard de nos perceptions.
Il m’aurait été plus simple de partir d’éléments sonores abstraits. L’utilisation d’enregistrements de terrain peut facilement orienter l’écoute vers des dimensions documentaires voir anecdotiques. Au contraire j’ai choisi d’utiliser cette expérience au Honduras et les sons que j’en ai rapportés lors de ces deux voyages sur place. C’est là-bas que j’ai retrouvé dans mon corps, dans mon ventre, les sensations rencontrées en forêt amazonienne, là-bas au pied de Merua et ses environs.
Cette composition est une tentative de transcription d’une expérience vécue à un endroit et à un moment donné par l’utilisation d’une matière sonore provenant d’un autre espace et enregistrée sept années plus tard avec une couleur, une odeur acoustique qui est celle de cette côte des Caraïbes.
(Frédéric Nogray, Septembre 2014)
Text below is featured on the additional art card :
On the Caribbean coast of Honduras, and other surrounding places, live the Garifuna people.
Their spiritual culture, as well as their origins, find their roots in Africa (voodoo) and in the north east of Amazonia (shamanism).
The buyei is the shaman, medicine man, spirit guide,and the effective link between the living and the dead.
During my stays in Honduras, I spent a lot of time in a house at the foot of a hill called Merua.
Refuge of the spirits and snakes nest, it is an inhospitable place.
Merua scares villagers so they do not attend.
Only few buyeis go there to collect herbs for their medicine. I found someone to take me there.
After a short but arduous climb, I started to record. My guide and I went further to wait.
For one hour we did not hear any sounds from the hill.
It was right before sunset, but no bird, insect or wind. We could only hear the sounds of the Caribbean Sea and from surrounding human activities.
Back to the house I tried to listen to the recording, but the sound file had disappeared from the memory card.
I later told a buyei this story. She replied to me they beware of Merua and always have a great apprehension when they enter into this sanctuary.
( Frédéric Nogray - September 2014)
credits
released September 30, 2014
Location : different locations on the Caribbean North Coast of Honduras
between the cities of Tela and La Ceiba in August 2012.
All sounds field recorded by Frédéric Nogray.
Cover design & treatments by Daniel Crokaert.
Based exclusively on photos by Frédéric Nogray.
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