Uakti
I Ching

Uakti, according to the indigenous legend of the Tukano Indians (original inhabitants of the Amazon forest) was a mythological being who lived along the banks of the “Rio Negro”. His body was full of holes that, when the wind passed through, emitted sounds that enchanted the women of the tribe. The men thus decided to kill him. At the place where his remains were buried, palm trees grew, which the Indians used to make flutes that had a sound reminiscent of that produced by the body of Uakti.

There could not be a more appropriate name for this group of Brazilian musicians led by Marco Antonio Guimaraes, the main curator of the compositions and arrangements. A music graduate from the Federal University of Bahia, he was greatly influenced by his professor, a Swiss enthusiast self-builder of musical instruments. Drawing from these teachings, Marco Antonio, along with the other Uakti members, build their own instruments and compose a contemporary classical genre with minimalist and serialist influences. Despite this, their music is not at all difficult to listen to; in fact, I would say that Uakti emits vibrations that enchant all ears. Indeed, what also helps make their sound accessible are the unique and extraordinary timbre qualities of the instruments they ingeniously construct, timbres that bring us back to the sounds of nature and primitive percussions. Describing their inventions in detail would require too much space, so I invite you to visit their official website.

“I ching” is an album inspired by the book of the same name, also called "The Book of Changes” and was composed for a dance group in 1993, which does not detract from its compositional completeness. The first eight pieces are dedicated to the eight trigrams, that is, the possible combinations of Yang and Yin, where the former, represented graphically by a solid line, is musically identified with a note of length equal to 1 and the Yin, represented graphically by two lines, is musically identified with two notes of value 1/2+1/2. The compositions also try to recall the elements related to the various trigrams. The ninth piece, "The exagrams,” is a musical reading of the sixty-four hexagrams arranged according to their basic sequence; its duration of eighteen minutes and its greater structural complexity do not prejudice the enjoyment of listening. The album closes with two compositions by Artur Andres de Ribeiro, another Uakti member along with Decio de Souza Ramos Filho.

Uakti manages to achieve an optimal balance in the challenging task of reconciling opposites, reaching the Tao of music. They reach simple results through complex compositional solutions, primitive timbres with contemporary instrumentation, tribal rhythms with "romantic" melodies, and they are original and innovative without the forcedness and harshness of many avant-garde movements.