Wëeña Rügaü (children of the river)

"Far deep inside the Amazon, after twelve hours on a canoe through green wilderness and mirrored skies, I arrived at a small indigenous Tikuna settlement nestled beside the river. There, children laughed as they bathed in the water’s bronze light, while their mothers washed clothes by the river, each rhythmic strike against the wood becoming part of the forest’s pulse — a gentle percussion older than language.

"From these living sounds, Wëeña Rügaü — Children of the River — was born. A composition woven from field recordings captured in this hidden, timeless place where the world seems to hum with remoteness. The piece unfolded naturally: the recordings became a bed of sound upon which layers of ambient pads from the OP-1 synth floated, diffused through a mood pedal. A kalimba then drifted in and out of the current, its tones dissolving into textures of light and distance as they passed through the Microcosm pedal.

"The piece moves like a dream — liquid, translucent, and eternal. It holds within it the memory of a suspended moment: the sun on the river, the echo of laughter, the endless green horizon breathing in rhythm. Recorded within a remote indigenous Tikuna community, this piece carries the shimmer of that living river — where sound becomes both memory and movement.

"Wëeña Rügaü is not merely a recording; it is a memory capsule — a sonic offering to the water that carries stories older than words, dedicated to the people who still live within its song."

Sao Pedro Tipisca Amazon soundscape reimagined by Rafael Diogo.