On July 12, Bomba Estéreo’s founder Simón Mejía announced his new single “Mamita,” under his artist project Monte. The track is part of his forthcoming film El Duende and its soundtrack, coming out on July 22.
The music video starts off with the narrator saying: “My dad taught us and we all learned to make instruments, to dance and everything… When dad made these instruments here in Guapi, the priests would send him to take them to the house, they would call him over the loudspeakers. The Torres are coming, they are coming to play.” As he reminisces, Monte’s soft electronic sounds create an inviting ambiance that soothes the protagonist’s conversation about the marimba instrument.
The narrator continues talking about his past, specifically about the joy the instrument brings his family, detailing the times they would play it and dance. During his story, sepia-toned images of an old wooden house, spiderwebs, old instruments, and a body of water, to name a few, appear on the screen. Towards the end of the experimental video, the clip brings in color and touches on another theme. This time, a different narrator talks about the responsibility of having children and how it’s common for the father to leave the child fatherless. He then says, “This set of music is for her abandoned child who has no father.”
El Duende [The Elf] is a musical journey on Colombia’s pacific coast. The new short film embodies the history of the marimba instrument, detailing how it was built and played in the jungle. The film dives into the story of the Dinastia Torres, a family of marimba instrumentalists with African ancestral roots. The soundtrack EP will consist of four new remixes by Monte from his 2020 album Los Duendes De La Marimba.
As far as the film goes, the press statement says it “looks at the myth of the duende, a mysterious being somewhere between an elf and a demon, who teaches locals how to assemble the marimba and play it.”
Monte (Mejía) is set to showcase the new film at Nublu NYC on July 22, where he will also perform a DJ set to celebrate.
Watch the music video for “Mamita” below.