The following was submitted by Orcas Center.
Uji (also known as Luis Maurette) is an electronic producer and musician who lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina who has been called a “shepherd of sound” by Noisey (Vice). Made famous as half of the pioneering duo Lulacruza, he has released five albums, including an album titled “Orcas” inspired by the island we call home, a feature film and visual album by director Vincent Moon.
A step away from Lulacruza’s pop line, Uji explores more ceremonial, tribal rhythms with elements that provide the body with “nocturnal movements.” Booked to perform a set with more than five instruments at Orcas Island Imagine Festival, Uji will stick around to DJ a tribal-tropical, electronic, last chance summer dance in Orcas Center’s Black Box. Tickets are $10. DJ Jake Perrine will open the night on Tuesday, Sept. 11 at 8 p.m. and the bar will be run all night by The Barnacle. Specialty drinks provided. The night is slated to end around 1 a.m.
A nomad since the age of two, Uji has lived throughout the American continent in Ecuador, Chile, Mexico, USA and Argentina. Uji’s music is made for the dance floor, and has roots in indigenous, folkloric and African music and borrows from the aesthetics and sound design of electronic music. His fascination with sound and electronic music brought him to Berklee School of Music where he delved into synthesis, programming and sound design. In parallel, he immersed himself in ritual music, which led him into the mountains and jungles to participate in indigenous ceremonies and songs, to make field recordings of the birds and rivers, to learn rhythms and dances, to discover ancient practices and to listen to the ancestral voice of nature. Uji’s music is the alchemical ritual of merging these seemingly opposite worlds of the ancient and the modern.
“More than a particular style or sound, I like to think that my music seeks the commonplace between places and their cultures,” Uji said. “For example, I have a track inspired by Gnawa music from North Africa, but when it plays in Argentina, people associate it with the typical Malambo dance steps there. There are rhythmic matrices that are found on all five continents and for me, the more we recognize these ties, the better we will understand everything that really unites us.”
As a celebration of dance and personal expression thru movement, this will be the first of several yearly dance parties in the Orcas Center Black Box.
