Uakti

experimental

Uakti (WAHK-chee) is a Brazilian instrumental musical group that is composed of Marco Antônio Guimarães, Artur Andrés Ribeiro, Paulo Sérgio Santos, and Décio Ramos. Uakti is known for using custom-made instruments, built by the group itself. The name of the group comes from a Tukano native South American legend. Uakti was a mythological being who lived on the banks of the Rio Negro. His body was full of holes, which, when the wind passed through them, produced sounds that bewitched the women of the tribe. The men hunted down Uakti and killed him. Palm trees sprouted up in the place where his body was buried, and the people used these to make flutes that made enchanting sounds like those produced by the body of Uakti. Discography: Uakti - Oficina Instrumental (1981) Uakti 2 (1982) Tudo e Todas as Coisas (1984) Mapa (1992) I Ching (1994) 21 (1996) Trilobyte (1997) Águas da Amazônia (1999) (music by Philip Glass) Mulungu do Cerrado (2001) (with Tabinha) Clássicos (2003) Uakti (DVD, 2003) Oiapok Xui (2005) Blindness - Soundtrack (2008) The group's leader, Marco Antônio Guimarães, studied music at the Universidade Federal da Bahia in Salvador. There he met and took classes with Walter Smetak, who passed on to him his passion for constructing musical instruments. In the years following his training, Marco Antônio played cello with the São Paulo and Minas Gerais symphony orchestras. During the same period he constructed, in the basement of his house, various instrumen...