qoa ~ sauco

qoa ~ sauco (leaving records, 2024)

SAUCO is a fertile and bracing voyage into the Argentinian wilderness, a journey both mournful and healing—an effort to trace what has been lost, what remains, and what might return. Each of SAUCO’s nine tracks draws its name and inspiration from a lifeform (be it plant, animal, lichen, insect) native to QOA’s homeland. These songs are carefully crafted offerings to their namesakes: attempts to study, honor, and convey the essence of the thing. ~ leaving

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Qoa is an example of how "neo new age" music differs from "classic" new age music in my understanding ~ when old new age looked for reuniting humans with nature, it was usually made through making inviting music to play along the sounds of nature and they could definitely go well together but were usually each a thing of its own. while neo new age tends to make music sound like nature itself, not imitating it, but revealing its truest form ~ free flowing, iridescent, unchained from the straight squared utilitarian forms which it usually has taken throughout the 20th century. not that it was never done in other types of music, but modern new age ~ well, actually Qoa here, on this record ~ seems to be closest to what can be called "ecological" music because instead of teaching a lesson about responsibilities, it makes the sound to express Nature with its very form and movement. instead of learning about some important facts, you're invited to feel it. to experience the world through how lichens do it. or trees, or a flower, or a bee ~ of course, imagined through a human abilities, yet, in case of Qoa, feeling quite authentic because her approach has something animalistic, shamanic, something which is hard to capture through any rational analysis. you simply feel it or not. but if you know at least a few words from a language which nature speaks, you will recognise the taste. you may experienced it on a hike on a starry night, on some open-air festival or maybe in your back yard while tripping on mushrooms and actually, truthfully touching grass for the first time in your adult life... or maybe you was born with this feeling and these organic languages of moving along with the sunlight, rooting towards the underground water streams and seeding, sprouting, pollinating... all are familiar to you. but even in this case you may find yourself in the midst of concrete walls, not seeing the horizon for days and wondering about some funny imaginary numbers through a little screen on your palm. and only because Nature speaks some weird, silicon languages as well. but they shouldn't be louder than others, than of those who inhabited this lovely plane(t) long before we started changing it. maybe music like this is our last chance to finally learn these languages because this music is a ultimate translator.

listen ~ support ~ cs rip