Japanese Experimental Noise is Coming to Mexico at the Cha’ak’ab Paaxil MultipleTap Festival
From March 11 – 15, Mexico will host 11 of the most forward thinking Japanese experimental noise musicians and pair them with their Mexican counterparts for a unique experience. For everyone interested in sound art, improvisation and plain ol’ noise, this is your festival.
MultipleTap is a Japanese initiative to bring their best and brightest noise, experimental and improvisational musicians to tour around countries like England, Germany, France, Denmark, and China. Among the artists that will play in the Mexican cities of Querétaro and Mérida, are Acid Mothers Temple leader Kawabata Makoto, extreme sound manipulator Toshimaru Nakamura, unconventional guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama and fluorescent lighting-as-sound-source artist Atsuhiro Ito.
Of note is the choice to set the festival not in Mexico City, Tijuana, Monterrey or any other major cities used to international action. Co-curators Cha’ak’ab Paaxil (which means “free music” in Mayan) are a Mérica, Yucatán-based festival that has, for the last eight years, brought some of the best and most influential improvisers, free jazz musicians and noisicians from around the world; they have been also nurturing the Yucatán improv scene, which has been thriving longer than the festival itself. Since most things in Mexico happen in DF, the organizers thought that a good way to decentralize the fringe scene was to host in a city near by (Queretaro) as well as in Mérida.
The festival will feature unique sets in which the Japanese musicians will play an improvisation set with at least one Mexican artist, which include recognized jazz figures like Remi Álvarez and Germán Bringas, formal improvisers like María Lipkau and Gudinni Cortina, and extreme sound explorers like Los Heraldos Negros and I/C/O/C. Regardless of nationality, they will present a mixture of traditional instruments, electronics and Frankenstein-grade junk. The Mérida portion of the festival will integrate a who’s who of the Yucatán improv scene.
For details, check out the Facebook page here.