QUILA QUINA

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QUILA QUINA

-40°17’38.21”N, -71°45’68.48”S

BY ELSA NILSSON

TO BE RELEASED OCTOBER 11 2024

THE RECORD

Two years after her inaugural offering from Atlas of Sound — a series of multimedia captures of places — Brooklyn flutist and composer Elsa Nilsson has teamed up with Buenos Aires pianist Santiago Leibson for its evolution and continuation.

On October 11, via ears&eyes, Nilsson and Leibson will issue Quila Quina -40°17’38.21”N, -71°45’68.48”S — which builds on the vision its predecessor, Coast Redwoods 41°32’09.8”N 124°04’35.5”W. This time, Atlas of Sound hones in on Quila Quina, in the Patagonian region of Argentina, in the province of Neuquen. The coordinates in the titles mark the exact location of the conception of the music.

Quila Quina sits on the southern shore of Lago Lacár, and is reachable only by gravel road or ferry from San Martín De Los Andes. It is on National Park Lands, in collaboration with the Mapuche community that lives there. As the national park was being created through colonization, small plots of land were simultaneously being purchased by non-Indigenous folk, and logging became the primary industry. Nilsson arrived there days before the end of 2023, for a writing residency at Project Oasis' by invitation of Maryella Marie and her partner Guillermina Fumagalli. Upon Nilsson’s arrival, her hosts set up a guided tour with a man named Guary Valenzuela — the youngest of 10 in a family of Mapuche folks, who lay claim to that ancestral land.

She soon began to learn all about Quila Quina’s landscape, and flora and fauna — including the call and response of birds, the medicinal properties of plants, and water’s preferred pathways through the local tree systems. She wrote Quila Quina over a five-day period soaking in — and learning about — this special environment. And Leibson — her valued, longtime collaborator — provided the perfect counterbalance for this musical representation of the natural world.

“One of the things I appreciate most about Santiago is his attention to texture and how quickly he picks up on really small details and brings them to the forefront,” Nilsson shares. “Santiago always brings all of himself to everything he plays, and these 5 hours at Estudio Doctor F. were no different.” The book that accompanies the release includes poetry by Mapuche poet Pukem Inayao, in Mapudungun, interweaved between descriptions of the plants and the compositions.This book is meant to be read as one listens to the album.

After an introductory poem by Pukem, Quila Quina kicks off with “The Wind From The North Comes From The West,” which Nilsson sums up as “the holding identity while changing directions.” “Winds are such powerful connectors. Everything that is alive breathes in some way, a measurement of life in time,” she says of that track. “I am perpetually aware of air. Every time I enter a space to play music I immediately note the air, my primary ingredient in creating sound. Each space has a distinctive texture that is a result of humidity, proximity to salt water, level of pollution, plant life, time since rain and countless other factors.”

“Neneo, Charcoa, Chacay” is an ode to grasses and brush. “I wrote this piece early in the morning after climbing straight up this very steep hill to get a closer look at the field of Neneo,” she says. “This particular hill was covered in the low growing brushes I’d seen with Guary the day before, with a few Maiten on the ridge. The view was so compelling, I just had to go up.”

“Waters Cold and Deep” pays homage to Lago Lacár, the body of water that touches Quila Quina’s shores. “The morning I wrote this the lake was in its mirror state, where the water is so still it looks like glass. This is a common morning occurrence as the winds often pick up around noon. The sunlight reflecting onto the Pataguas made it seem as if the trees were glittering,” Nilsson says. “This balance between playfulness and peace in this interaction brought this melody forward for me with my feet in the freezing water right alongside the Pataguas.”

“Tren Tren, Abanico, Vizcacha,” follows — and Nilsson wrote it for a currently inactive volcano that took on a legendary, mythological significance. “Of course, a song for the three mountains needed to be in 3/4,” she says. “It has three sections. These sections are shaped like the mountains they represent.”

Another Pukem poem follows, with “Ciprés, Roble Pellín, Ñire” right behind it. “This particular grove was in an outdoor event space called “El Bosque” where my hosts put on an amazing lunch and I played these melodies for an audience for the first time.” While they were setting up I wandered in the woods, listening,” Nilsson says.

“The recurring half step in the melody was coming at me from all over. It originated in the waves rolling against the beach covered in pebbles,” she adds. “The whoosh of the tree canopy responding in turn, branches interacting in half step motions as they change directions with the wind. The birds took it up and echoed it around to each other until the wind returned the phrase to the water.”

“Radal” is about its namesake tree, which offers a host of therapeutic properties and practical applications. “The bark is used to cure toothaches, the wood from fallen trees used for tools and art, and the honey that comes from the bees pollinating the flowers has a distinctive flavor,” Nilsson elaborates.

And, about the music: “The line that begins this song and is traded back and forth between flute and piano has minor changes only, but these details make a large difference,” Nilsson continues. “When we leave the line, it is still there. The details define the motion, even when they are not being observed. Imagine how rich our experience could be if the details were always acknowledged with such attention?”

“Maiten/Michay” frames the relationship between the soft, narrow Maiten tree, and the intense thorns of the Michay. “I’ve been thinking about this in relation to a phrase my friend Keith LaMar LaMar (a wrongfully-convicted death row prisoner in Ohio with much to teach the world about grace. Learn more at keithlamar.org) says: everything is everything,” Nilsson says. “I think about those words a lot, because I like the truth in them. It's like the details we pass through to see their connection to everything else. We find our focal point from which we access all things, and that connects us to that which we don’t yet understand.”

Quila Quina -40°17’38.21”N, -71°45’68.48”S concludes with “Chin Chin/Puelche,” a musical transcription of the sensation of changes and shifts. Therein, she compares the Chin Chin, a tree with small, dark green leaves, with the movement of the air.

“Puelche is the wind from the east, the other direction. People don’t like it, said Guary. It leaves folks feeling unsettled,” Nilsson says. “I experienced the Puelche winds on my third day in Quila Quina and I understood. It was unsettling, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. Segundo, who ran the campsite, shared that things are built to serve the prevailing wind directions. In Puelche, winds fires go where they shouldn’t, shelters don’t work as designed. We have to pay more attention when things change.”

Throughout an accompanying book, Nilsson brings readers into Guary’s shared knowledge, and credits him throughout. As she explains, Valenzuela spoke of the Mapuche language, Mapudungun, and shared that it was originally a spoken language only, and the written aspect was added when creating Mapudungun to Spanish dictionaries. “Guary shared that when he was a kid, she adds. “Many parents weren’t teaching their kids the language out of fear of oppression, but it is now being taught in schools again.”

Undergirding this all is the language of nature itself — and Nilsson channels it with grace, intuition and an abundant sense of musical poeticism.