Juyungo: Afro-Indigenous Music from the Northwestern Andes

In the Ecuadorian city and surrounding region of Esmeraldas, the descendants of Africans who escaped slavery, and Indigenous peoples such as the Chachi, have co-existed for over 400 years. Their musical cultures developed separately but influenced each other, and the exploration of this is the focus of this astonishing album based on the work of French musicologist Chopin Thermes. The material here was recorded and collated by Thermes between 1969 and 1996 and is the product of Afro-Ecuadorian and Indigenous musicians brought together to form Ensamble Juyungo. African marimba and percussion mix with Andean flutes, treble-heavy string instruments and scratchy violin; sometimes the Andeans join in with an Esmeraldenian Andarele, and at other times the Esmeraldenians accompany an Indigenous Chachi melody. To remind us of the European presence, there are occasional interjections from harpsichord and viola da gamba, which stand in surreal contrast to the background static of yagé (ayahuasca) ceremonies, weddings and found sounds. It’s feverish and immersive art that examines a particularly syncretic element of a continent in which the constituent ingredients are so piquantly evident. To quote the liner notes, it’s “a mixture of mixtures.”