New Central American Tales

There is plenty of space around the many different sounds and voices narrating Central American horror stories on Honduran-Danish artist Xenia Xamanek’s album Germinate. The words »germinate« and »wilt« appear in the title, serving as fitting markers for the blossoming, bubbling, futuristic, and slightly eerie soundscape. A handful of voices fill the ears with mechanical, intense connections, swirling impressions of nature and language into the brain.

The album is a rare reinvention of the oratorio, the 18th-century religious opera genre featuring sung text fragments and wordless music. A significant departure from the dance floors Xamanek used to curate. Here, singers and an electro-acoustic soundscape tell stories through two simple, word-heavy recitatives, two arias with chanting narration, and electronic soundscapes.

There’s a calmness in Xenia Xamanek’s approach that can become utterly addictive. The material from their ancestral storytelling – and perhaps even the chanting narrative style – sets a scene that feels both warm and familiar. Yet at the same time, it turns original and alien as the calm of the words is challenged by dense patterns of simple sonic elements interacting with each other.

Oratorios in the 18th century lasted three hours and can easily feel distant and irrelevant today. But Xamanek’s album, rooted in the cuentos y leyendas de Honduras they heard in their childhood, offers three-quarters of an hour of presence – one that unexpectedly points forward.