Uji, Luis Maurette

Luis is a percussionist, electronic musician, and multimedia artist. Originally from Argentina, but he has lived throughout the American continent, bridging north and south, and exploring universal principles that connect different cultures. Sound, as a carrier of meaning and knowledge, as the unifying vibrational building block of the universe, as a reflection of time, as song, music and culture, is the primary inspiration for his art and life. Luis is part of the duo of music band Lulacruza where he complements Alejandra´s voice with electronic processing and sequencing, as well as percussion and charango.He is now also exploring a solo project with new sound avenues called Uji.

Check his music here: [embed]https://soundcloud.com/ujitimebeing[/embed]

Here he introduces a bit of his story... 1. Tell us 3 things about you?

* I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina but had quite a nomadic childhood. Before the age of thirteen I had already lived in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador and USA. These early years had a huge impact in the way I see the world around me, and in my sense of identity. There are so many inspiring ways to live and I have picked up little bits of culture here and there. My music is a reflection of this.

* I have quite a fascination for both the future as well as the ancient. It is hard to explain but these two forces are very present in me. I am attracted to technology and have studied electronic music, including computer programming and synthesis, I have worked with algorithms found in nature to organize musical patterns, have delved into sound art and used sensors and motors in my music. I am not afraid of the future, rather I embrace it. But I have also been increasingly drawn to the ancient ways of life. I have traveled through the Inca region in Argentina, in an ethnomusical journey, discovering (nearly) lost traditions and living within indigenous communities. I have participated in numerous indigenous ceremonies and rites of passage, have spent countless hours in sweat lodges and peyote, ayahuasca, and wachuma ceremonies in search for my own spirit. I have played music until the sunrise in the mountains of the andes, in the jungles of the Pacific Colombia and the deserts of Peru. I did a feature film in Colombia about the search for the origin of music, those ancestral voices found in nature that brought about culture and language. The alchemy of future and past is an essential part of why I make music. These two seemingly opposite forces somehow connect within me and make complete sense.

* Throughout my life I had a few powerful experiences that have showed me the vibrational power of sound. It is hard to put in words because the impressions were felt more than they were seen, but through this I have made a very spiritual connection with sound. And so, I am interested in what I call Ritual Music. Music that has the power to transform, to open one's eyes to a layer of life that is below the surface. Music that goes beyond just entertaining. This aspect of music has led me into the heart of cymatics, shamanism, Buddhism, sufism, psychodelics and more. Hazrat Inayat Khan, a sufi musician and philosopher that has influenced me greatly puts it best. "Music is the greatest mystery in the world. The whole manifestation is made of vibrations, and vibrations contain all its secrets."

These factors are the driving force of all the music I make.

2. How did music happen to you?

Music has been with me since I can remember. I am not sure why or how it all began but since I was seven I have been playing music, singing and immersing myself in music.

I don't think I ever chose to be a musician, I just was a musician. I think in rhythm, I remember melody over lyrics, I feel sound. To me music and sound are the originators of life, and in its most subtle form music acts as the bridge between worlds and states of consciousness.

I feel music is my life's mission and I have dedicated my life to the art of music and the magic of sound. Not by choice but by destiny

3. What is Uji and how did it start?

Uji is a new solo project that is born out of the necessity to take my music one step further, to explore aspects that I haven't been able to with my previous groups.

Uji is music for the dancefloor, music that has roots in indigenous, folkloric and african music and that borrows from the aesthetics and sound design of electronic music. Its hipnotic music, ritual music, tribal music, sacred music, deep music that uses dance as the vehicle in which to take the listener to altered states of sensation and consciousness.

4. What feels like love to you?

Love is so many things. Love is the tenderness in the heart you feel when someone close grows and evolves, love is the appreciation for the softness of the breeze on one's skin, love is like a living entity which we can feed with our actions and thoughts and allow it to grow and transform everything around us. Love is also the deepest force behind all of creation, what brings two people together to form a new life, that which brings families together to create a new world.

5. What is your favourite kind of music?

Music that goes beyond the surface. It is so easy in today's world to get caught in superficial values and emotions. But music is unique in that it can easily delve into the deepest of human emotions, and can communicate the subtlest forms of our human selves. We musicians have a much more important role than we often take responsibility for. It is up to us to paint the world of the future.

6. Share with us one how do songs come to visit you?

Music is constantly flowing through me and it is only a matter of opening the tap and letting it go. I have melodies and rhythms that are circulating through me continuously and most times, without even realizing it I am tapping or humming something. So for me to "compose" is simply to sit down in front of an instrument in my production studio and releasing it all. Its kind of like stream of consciousness writing, where you do not doubt or overthink what is coming through, but instead trust blindly. I am not sure where it comes from, but whatever the source is, it is abundant and overflowing.