This album completes the process started with the construction of the sound sculpture Exu, connected to the cosmovision Yoruba and, in particular, with this Orixá, a crucial entity in the afro-brasilian candomblé rituals, the messenger between two worlds, the guardian of vital energy.

Marco made the sculpture out of found-objects related to Orixá combining traditional wood and metal amplified by contat mics which is added gourds with seeds and sea shells, all connected to a pair of speakers arriving to interpret the function of Igbá in ritual through a contemporary sound form.

The name of the album is a manifestation of respect to Exu and completes the process started with the construction of the sound sculpture entity in the afro-brasilian candomblé rituals.

Each of the four compositions uses sounds that are recorded from this sound sculpture and relate to aspects and stories of this Orixá:

According to Yorubá metaphysics, everything that exists in the spiritual world (Orum) also exists in the physical world (Aiyê, the world we see) and, in this sense, what an Orixá represents in the physical world is its Igba, a receptacle for the concentration of energy, with a ritualistic function, the receiver of votive offerings for the circulation, transformation and replacement of the Asé, as well as a spiritual connection between each of these Orixás. In this way, the Exu sculpture is an Igba that connects and converts the materiality of the object itself to the immateriality of each of the sounds that are converted into music in this piece of work.

Mojubá Exu, the name of the album, is a manifestation of respect to Exu. Each of the four compositions uses sounds that are recorded and processed from this Igba sculpture and relate to aspects and stories of this Orixá: the idea that, initially only total darkness existed and that Exu- Elegbá already dwelled within; he was discovered by Olofim, the supreme being, and invited to help to collaborate with creation, employing his vital power, Asé; he crosses both worlds worlds, meandering among them to attend to the demands of human beings and of spiritual entities; he manifests himself in the crossroads and is guardian of Asé and the secrets of Orunmilá.

During the process of composition the sounds produced by Igbá Exu were digitally processed, stretching the temporal vectors, overlapping layers to create a dense weave, reconfiguring aspects of its timbre to reconnect them to the acoustic sounds of the object. The only sound that is external to the Igba is the digitally processed voice of babalorixá Babatonikã, who recited an Exu chant.

Exu is the Orixá messenger of both worlds, he is the language, the guardian of the world’s vital energy, and a crucial element in many rituals in cosmology and in black-african cultures, particularly in the Yorubá communities. Its appearance on Brazilian territory allowed for the flourishing of religions of African origin, and the strengthening of diasporic identity. Among Iorubas the notion of time is circular, the myth narrates events and at the same time it foresees the destiny, since existence is a continuous repetition of events narrated.

“Exu was born before his mother”, is the customary belief in the communities. He is the movement that generates the oscillation between a system of expansion and system of contraction, the binary principle in the thought structure of Ifá who, in turn, is the witness of destinies and, at the same time, a system of divination that evokes the 16 primordial Tetragrams that represent the energies present in the origin of the universe.

Between contraction and expansion, between the Orum and the Aiyé, there is Exu with his shifting energy, constantly on the move to satisfy his hunger, as well as to attend to each and every quest. The messenger is present in every ritual, it is he who knows all the secrets of Orunmilá (Ifá), he is the guardian of Axé, the vital force. According to Ifá every birth, after Creation, is a rebirth. And the circularity of time in mythical culture, the manifestation of Exu on Brazilian territory, is the rebirth that connects us to the vital energy of the origin.


About Marco Scarassatti

Sound artist, improviser and composer, develops research and construction of soundsculptures and sound installations. Artist commissioned by the Kunstradio radio station in Vienna to compose the music-video Memory of the Fire(2015), and artist commissioned to create a sound installation Orixás Sonoros (Ogum, Oyá and Xangô) to the front of the Hellerau theater (2016). He participated as an advisor at the Smetak’s inventions exhibition organized by DAAD at the DAAD galerie, also wrote texts to catalog and opened the Symposium Re-thinking Smetak with the lecture called “Itinerary of Caosonance”, about Walter Smetak, all these activities within the MaerzMusik Festival (Berlin, 2017). He was contemplated by the program Ibermúsica with a funding and order to compose for the Chilean group CEMLA. In 2017, during artistic residence in Chile, composed the music 4 Crónicas acerca de la ciudad y la ancestralidad: Belo Horizonte, San Pedro of Atacama, Valparaíso that released in June, 10, during the Seminario Nuevas Músicas Latinoamericanas, in Valparaiso, Chile. Lecture at the Federal University of Minas Gerais - UFMG and author of the book Walter Smetak, o alquimista dos sons, Perspectiva / SESC publisher, published in 2008.