okraa

Artist: okraa

OKRAA has developed his musical language since 2014’s internationally acclaimed DREAMACHINE and 2015’s VULTUR, creating virtual instruments by sampling Colombian instruments like the ‘cuatro llanero’ and ‘marímbula.’ With those early EPs attracting praise from Thump! Mexico, Radar Magazine and Earmilk, Torres Alonso now looks set to break through to a much wider audience. Having performed across the EU and Colombia’s biggest music festivals, including Festival Estéreo Picnic and MUTEK Colombia, he is now set for Europe again with his experimental live sets, featuring “live looping, signal processing and euphoria, organic soundscapes, beats and Latin rhythms.

Last year he played SXSW, toured Mexico with his fully interactive audio-visual show and has been working on his groundbreaking A/V project with VJ collaborator Carlos Rodriguez. Using Puredata, Arduino, Ableton Live and Modul8 to create a unique, inclusive live experience, which Alonso describes as “audiovisual psychedelia.” Specially hacked distance sensors translate the movement of performer and crowd into music and effects. 

Torres Alonso’s process of creation as “a very synaesthetic experience,” a blurring of sensory inputs where colours become sounds and light becomes music. He has previously described his compositions as being “a reminder of how we used to be when we were really young,” that magical realist quality of a child-like viewpoint, or a mystical vision. “It’s important to keep a little bit of that… always,” he says. His music is the sound of that vision, realised.

With an EP on the way and some beautiful remixes, we can’t wait to show you what Okra has in store in 2018.

Audio