Minaret Mix: Kat Estacio

The minarets centred in Manar Moursi’s new work “Stairway to Heaven” are the catalysts for the metropolitan development of newly forged communities on the outer, agricultural lands of Cairo. Similar to the call-to-worship recordings that project from the loudspeakers of these minarets, the musical purposes of the traditional Filipino kulintang gong shares a paralleled ability to gather communities to public space.

In a stimulating performance, musician and artist Kat Estacio will re-mix the raw field recordings from the score of “Stairway to Heaven” with drone Kulintang sounds. In an act that dilutes the patriarchal impositions of the minaret, Estacio will usher in the matriarchy through the imitation sounds of the (mother) nature attributed to Kulintang music.

Kat Estacio is a musician, artist, and a creative arachnid in Toronto. Her work as a diasporic queer woman of colour occupies the cranny in between the intersections of nostalgia and decolonization. She is a founding member of Pantayo, a lo-fi R&B gong punk band. Her solo compositions blend drifty experimental synth tones with the soft percussive timbre of kulintang, a departure from the more rhythmic stylings of the larger outfit she shares in Pantayo. A strange hypnotic world unfolds that is both starkly daunting and deeply inviting. A sinister and brooding trip, modern and traditional listeners are pulled into a new terrain, and there is nowhere to hide. https://soundcloud.com/kat-estacio