Metamorfosis opens with a yell. In “Tormentas,” a deity loosely based on the Aztec goddess of earth and life cycles awakens into the shape of a violent storm. After a swooning bass drop and just enough flirtation with a nightlife beat to capture some eroticism, a voice calls “tormentas” over vague percussion samples and a hovering synth. There’s no question that this new record from Nnux is letting something loose: it follows the journey of a shape-shifting deity who inhabits different natural phenomena. Each form — storm, fire, flower, animal, star — offers a new perspective of herself and the world.
During her time as a Matt Marks Impact Fund awardee in 2023, multidisciplinary artist, composer, and producer Nnux (Ana E. López) was considering how creation myths and science are both used to make meaning. Through that work, she recognized connections between the negative portrayal of female deities in mythology and ongoing domestic violence today. In an August 2023 interview, she told us that she was creating a concept album exploring femininity using elements of various female goddesses, which eventually became Metamorfosis.
But what sounds like primordial power and cosmic birth to the modern ear? Even the biggest orchestra can feel prim and controlled when experienced through headphones.
Familiarized with airplane roars and arena concerts, our perception of sound and volume is supercharged at a scale totally disproportionate to our existential processing rate. A rural artist might approach the work differently; but these are reflections from an urban dweller from Mexico City, Berlin, and New York City.
Nnux faced the challenge of weaving acoustic and electronic mediums together to mix ancient multicultural mythology with women’s lived contemporary experiences. But this approach has been embedded in her practice for years: her string quartet Ausencias utilizes electronics to consider the relationships between the living, dead, and absent in Mexican culture, and her piece for the ensemble Alarm Will Sound incorporated 3D projections, recorded narration, and layered and translucent screen installation by visual artist Oswaldo Erréve. Unlike these previous ensemble works, though, Metamorfosis keeps the human voice as the primary element through collaborations with singer-songwriter Paulina Parga and AVAJI, a Mexico City-based choir specializing in Georgian polyphony.
Nnux chooses communal human voices as the “Origen” point; a driving beat is the ground bass for wordless improvisation and soulful calls on the opening track. Electronic swells and synth harmonies foreshadow the forming star of “Polvo,” where echoey production creates a celestial environment, but an untamed voice and synth jangles prevent a slide into predictable galactic territory. “Nacimiento” drops narration and panting breath samples into rhythmic echoes of midrange frequencies. The exposition ripples through the electronics like a smooth stone in a pond. The record closes with a similar texture in “Vision,” but more voices and electronic distortion give us the feeling of accumulated energy ready to propel forward.
“Incendios” and “Perdi Mis Flores” contrast ferocious destruction with the delicacy of life. Rather than sampling real fire crackles in “Incendios”, Nnux rolls together sudden surges of choral harmony, bass pulses, and distortion that somehow mythologize fire with the noises of modern technology that are as promising and dangerous as that primal element. The digital age advertises progress, but we are burning; we are raging and panicking. The choir finds a groove and ultimately outlasts the electronic fire, surviving just like fragile flowers of withering beauty. We protest and we congregate, just as one lone voice on “Perdi Mis Flores” is joined by swooping and wilting polyphony.
The titular “Metamorfosis” opens with a low, animalistic growl. Overlapping electronics and sound samples — is that a human or a flock of crows? — swirls as Mexican singer Sarmen Almond explores the full range of the human voice with her signature vocal improvisations. And “Fertilidad” will knock you sideways: this is no sentimental feminine energy. From the opening seconds of a drop and buzzy synth ostinato, choral backups and a low soloist counterpoint dialogue with a fearless soloist. This is club energy — from the molten center of the earth.
Metamorfosis invites us to recognize our own empathic capacity and to reckon with our own fragile and destructive potential. If there are centuries of stories normalizing the degradation or suppression of feminine deities, how surprising is it that female mortals are also put at risk? Yet the people inculcated by those stories can reimagine their power as transformative potential. Nnux seeks to fuel metamorphosis as a viable option in our own lives: by converting these ideas into real musical form, her album of smart structures, tight timings, and experimental yet emotional energy provides a template for birthing empathy as a counterstructure to control.
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