Announcing a very special live performance by Chuquimamani-Condori (aka Elysia Crampton Chuquimia) and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton, along with a screening of their “Amaru’s Tongue: Daughter” film at Berlin’s Radialsystem on December 4.
Presented by SENSE and happening as part of Creamcake’s “10/11” hybrid event series, the sibling artists and musicians reflect on life, death, and time from the perspective of their Aymaran heritage. As a producer, Chuquimamani-Condori has had a profound influence on the contemporary underground—first, under the E+E moniker in the 2010s, then as Elysia Crampton, starting with their groundbreaking American Drift album, released via FaltyDL’s Blueberry Records in 2015. That record crystallized the consciously lo-fi anti-aesthetic of their early Bandcamp releases, where field recordings and digital synths, readymade patches and DJ pack samples collided in a dissonant collage of experimental sounds and deconstructed club music. Then, Chuquimamani-Condori’s monumental ORCORARA 2010 album—released via PAN in 2020—marked the beginning of a series of projects with their brother, Chuquimia Crampton, including an eight-minute hand-drawn work to accompany their “Secret Ravine (Chakana En General)” track in 2021.
“Amaru’s Tongue: Daughter” is the siblings’ latest film collaboration, where a surreal and unnerving score by Chuquimia Crampton accompanies writer-director Chuquimamani-Condori’s artful, and at times amusing rumination on ritual and ceremony. The silicon effigy of their late-grandmother—Flora Tancara Quiñonez Chuquimia—narrates alongside family members, alive and long-passed, while accompanied by the ever-present guidance of Andean goddess Pachamama, the spacetime world mother. Flora encounters a dog, a condor, and a hummingbird, along her journey through the narrative, with each being central figures in the three-year transition of death, detailing the traditions of the Pakajaqi nation, indigenous to parts of today’s Bolivia, Chile and Peru.
As Berlin-based interdisciplinary platform Creamcake reflects on the art, culture, and music that has either come, gone, or carried on, with and around its scene since starting in 2011, Chuquimamani-Condori and Chuquimia Crampton’s work is a fitting addition to its anniversary event program. The moving-image collage of Super 8mm film, animation, and archival sound and footage, is a contemplation of the Aymara idea of “qhip nayra”—where the future is the past and the past, the future.
