Step aside, magic mushrooms. In Mexico, a new approach to fungi is taking people to places they’ve never been: musical mushrooms.
Los Yuma Project, a group of experimental musicians in the northern state of Durango, is making mushrooms sing — literally.
The collective has been incorporating a technology that transforms the natural electrical impulses of mushrooms and plants into music, creating soundscapes where nature is not just an audience but a performer.
Using a device known as PlantWave, the musicians attach electrodes to various plants and mushrooms, psilocybin or otherwise.
The sensors capture tiny variations in electrical conductivity released by the flora and fungi and convert them into digital signals, which are then transformed into musical notes.
The result is a blend of raw natural rhythms and live improvisation.
The group’s methodology took flight during its participation last month in the 8th Mushroom Fair in the forested groves of Mexiquillo, an increasingly popular eco-tourism destination within the remote municipality of Pueblo Nuevo, Durango.
The performance blended mushroom impulses with live instrumentation.
“In addition to the equipment connected to the mushrooms, the musicians will improvise various genres based on the sounds generated by the specimens of the fungi kingdom,” said Marvin Reyes, owner of the Edible Mushroom Biofactory, in advance of the performance.
“The moment of bringing my hand close to the plant ingredients and feeling how they reacted to human contact was crucial,” explained Los Yuma Project guitarist and vocalist Jair Mijares. “Suddenly, there were rhythms, electrical responses that became music.”
The collective is composed of eight artists, all from Durango, using instruments such as bass guitar, drums and saxophone. Their previous experimentations with mushroom and plant sounds earned them an invitation to participate in the Mushroom Fair.
Along with vocalist Lorena Bellavia, they are now recording an album that expands their bio-sonic experiments into full compositions.
Performances like their one in August build on a global trend of bio-sonification, popularized by devices such as PlantWave, which was developed in the U.S. as a tool for turning plant microcurrents into soundscapes.
While the resulting music is ultimately human-processed, advocates say it invites audiences to consider plants and fungi as active, responsive beings rather than passive life forms.
“The plant becomes another component,” said Los Yuma Project percussionist Israel Pesci, adding to the emotions one already feels from music.
Pesci, Mijares and the other members of the collective insist their project is about more than novelty.
“The way you detect vibrations in plants and fungi is based on the rhythmic patterns and the intensity of the sound itself,” Mijares said. “When you touch the fungus, the intensity of the sound increases, and the rhythm begins to vary a little more.
“The challenge … is that you need to monitor a plant all day, every day, to see when it’s most active, when it’s undergoing photosynthesis, if it’s receiving sunlight, if it has water, or if it doesn’t. There are many stimuli it responds to. To understand the plant, you need to learn to listen to it.”
With reports from Milenio
