eMusic Review
Jorge Reyes was a member of the Mayan space rock band Chac Mool, a visionary group during a time when rock music was not socially advocated by the Mexican government, nor rewarded by the Mexican music industry. It was just the beginning of Reyes 'plunge into the roots of pre-Hispanic music, where he's tread the line of ethno-musicologist and shamanic participant ever since. On Rituales Prehispanico, he uses a combination of instruments, from rattles, drums and bones, to flutes, whistles and clay water pots, to eerie voices, chanting, moaning and breathing ancient rites into the present. A journey from start to finish, each passage represents a state of primordial consciousness. Whether or not this is how music sounded as the Mayans conducted their rituals under the full light of the Meso-American moon is inconsequential. What Reyes is able to achieve using instruments of that period, fused with technology, is a feat of the imagination that is absolutely spellbinding and transcendent.
