A Bizarre One-Person Orchestra - An Interview with Jorge Espinal

A Closer Listen

Photography by Sofía Poncini. Courtesy Buh Records.

We’ve covered Jorge Espinal‘s music before, when he was part of Ricarda Cometa, with whom he surprised us through a chaotic, kinetic approach to musical processes. As we looked forward to Espinal’s debut album for Peruvian label Buh Records, we conducted an interview via email. It was edited collaboratively by both the interviewer and the artist. You can find the result below.

David Murrieta Flores (ACL): Hello Jorge! Could you please talk a bit about yourself and your projects for readers unfamiliar with your work?

Jorge Espinal (JE): Hi David, nice to talk to you again. Thanks so much for having me.

I’m a Peruvian experimental guitar player and improviser based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, since 2007. My work centers around prepared guitar, with a strong emphasis on the role of the body in creating music. I often combine noise, extended techniques, and rhythmic approaches rooted in Latin American traditions. I usually collaborate with other musicians, mostly in free improvisation contexts. I’ve been involved in two long-running projects: Ricarda Cometa, a duo exploring noisy, rhythm-driven improvisation, and Calato, a quartet focused on graphic scores and explosive group interaction.

More recently, I’ve been working on Barriga, a duo with Yoto, with an album on the works and on a new project with Gabriela Areal. They’re both great Argentine musicians. Alongside these collaborations, I’ve been developing a solo setup that involves prepared guitar, kick drum, cowbell, pedals, a foot MIDI controller, and a laptop, all played simultaneously. It’s an ongoing exploration of rhythmic independence and layered, noisy textures.

ACL: To get into the matter, I’d like for you to talk about your perspective on technique, thinking about instrumentation as a kind of technology. To you, what is an instrument?

JE: I think that any object can become an instrument. What makes it one is intention. Once there’s a purpose, a technique emerges or is developed. You start discovering what kinds of sounds it can make. This applies to traditional instruments as much as to something as simple as a rock.

I approach music from a study-based perspective. Even though most of the time I’m improvising without fixed ideas, I spend a lot of time exploring my practice and developing a personal technique and vocabulary. The arbitrary decisions you make along the way, related to your personal sound, tend to shape other aspects of the music. I don’t believe this is the only valid way to make music, but it’s what interests me.

For me, technique is about your relationship with the instrument, investigating it, discovering it, getting to know it, and pushing its limits. It can be extremely personal.

I think of instrumentation as a technology in itself. Needs generate solutions, and every variable affects the whole. The body becomes the interface. This technology is variable. It changes over time, shaped by needs, creative explorations, and the questions that emerge through playing.

Photography by Alex Spagnolo. Courtesy Buh Records.

ACL: Why did you choose the instruments present across your various projects? What kinds of relationships do you have with them, thinking in technical/technological terms?

I’m mainly a guitar player, and my work revolves around the prepared electric guitar. In the beginning, it was about creating new sonic ecosystems, discovering how different objects behave in contact with the guitar (metal objects like lids, plates, clips, screwdrivers, or things like cello bow, stones, etc), what kinds of sounds they can produce, and how I can exploit those sounds.

Across different projects, I am always playing the guitar; what changes is the approach. In Ricarda Cometa, for example, the guitar was pushed to danceable rhythmic limits, often using metal sheets across the strings to get a percussive, non-tempered sound. The music, although sonically quite particular, is rhythm-driven and works in a linear, time-based way.

In Calato, it’s always been more abstract. Here, different kinds of guitar preparations serve their purpose. It’s more texture and noise driven, with blocks of sound interacting with each other in a very dynamic and wild way.

In a solo context, my strong interest in rhythm led me to develop a technique that allows me to do different things with each hand. That rhythmic focus started to influence how I approached the pedals I use. I work with just two: a Freeze for sustaining sounds and a Ditto Looper, mostly for micro-loops. Over time, they stopped feeling like simple effects and started behaving almost like autonomous elements within the system.

From there, it was a natural step to expand the setup. A cowbell pedal came in, then a MIDI foot controller and a laptop running Ableton Live, and eventually a kick drum pedal. Each of these elements appeared gradually, as my body, acting as the main interface, began demanding new ways to organize and generate sound.

I don’t think instruments are fixed tools. They are variables in a constantly evolving system. Their role is shaped by what the music needs and how the body negotiates those needs in real time. What connects all of them is a hands-on relationship with sound and the acceptance of my own vocabulary developed through the years.

Photo by Sofía Poncini & Alex Spagnolo. Courtesy Buh Records.

ACL: Considering technique as a way to transform the world, what are you transforming through these tools? What’s the world you’d like to hear/see/feel as a result of taking up an instrument?

JE: I’m inspired by people who are deeply invested in their fields, even when their expertise lies far from what I do. I find it fascinating to listen to them and discover the wide variety of worlds they create through their drive.

In my case, when I pick up the instrument, if everything is going right, I’m in a place where I’m not thinking. I’m just reacting and anticipating the music that’s being created. Not thinking about technique, not thinking about technology, not thinking about pre-worked patterns. Just listening, reacting, and creating structures in the moment.

If technique is a way to transform the world, then maybe what it does is help you understand and master the tools so it helps you dedicate yourself to what the technique serves, in this case creating music. Technique always becomes a means to something else. In the end, the optimal result is music that is fresh, alive, in constant motion but locked in. Something that feels unpredictable but grounded. Where things fall into place naturally, and the body is completely present.

ACL: Corporeality has always been key to your practice. How and why did it become so?

JE: My way of playing has always been pretty physical. I feel like the instrument starts before the instrument itself. Playing begins with the body before the instrument even comes into play.

For most of my career, I had been more interested in playing with other people. Playing solo didn’t seem so interesting at the time. I loved sharing ideas, with my musical decisions being fueled by the other players. Over time, I also started enjoying playing solo. It’s pretty intense to be able to make a fresh cohesive discourse all by yourself. I think I am still learning in that regard.

As for the inclusion of the kick drum, cowbell, and foot MIDI controller, I guess it just happened gradually. It wasn’t premeditated. I just started exploring, and as the music became more interesting, my body grew more capable of doing things it hadn’t done before. But there’s also something really powerful in this way of working, I found out that if I feel comfortable with the instrument some really interesting and precise things start to appear. I mean precise in a way that in the end it’s just one person deciding so I can be all over the place, doing really different things at once, but then it can become perfectly in sync in an instant.

This connection between body and instrument has become central to how I create and experience music.

Photo by Alex Spagnolo. Courtesy Buh Records.

ACL: I once read an interview with a construction worker, who used to say that whenever he’d operate a crane he’d establish some sort of continuity between himself and the controls, feeling the crane’s arm as his own, granting him superhuman strength. Understanding tools and instruments as bodily extensions, how do you experiment that extended corporeality, and what would you like your audience to understand from that interaction?

JE: I think that’s exactly what happens. I don’t know if it gives you a superhuman force, but there’s definitely something about extending the body through instruments that allows you to access another kind of physicality. In my case, it’s almost like becoming a bizarre one-person orchestra. Through this setup, I can create a superposition of voices that wouldn’t be possible if I were just playing a single instrument in the traditional sense.

I’m talking here from my own experience, from how I make music. In my case, everything is fully improvised, so it’s extremely important that I don’t need to think about the instrument while playing. I can say with the guitar that I’ve reached a point where most of the time I don’t think about it. With the instruments I play with my feet, I’m slowly getting there. It gets better with time. But like with anything you try to master, it just takes time.

If the audience senses that everything is working together, locked in, and it feels just like one instrument, one organism, that’s more than enough for me.

ACL: I love your collaborations with Hideyuki Katsumata. His work is also full of mutant bodies, extended, disorganized. Would you understand your practice as organic, mechanical, a mix of both, or perhaps even inorganic?

Hideyuki’s work is just incredible. I’ve always felt it has a lot to do with how Ricarda Cometa operates, and definitely with what I’m doing in my solo project. After recording Bombos y Cencerros, I knew I had to ask him if he wanted to create the art for it.

His visual world feels like in motion, with lots of different things happening at once but everything fits perfectly into place, like it’s constantly transforming. That really resonates with the kind of energy and unpredictability I look for in my music.

I believe my practice moves through all the states you mentioned. It often begins in an inorganic space, with different ways of approaching the instrument and the music, exploring ideas and possibilities without a clear hierarchy. Then the mechanical part kicks in. As I define certain directions, I have to teach my body how to handle those forms. The organic phase appears when the body responds well and the decisions come from the music itself, not from the machinery behind it.

These phases are not separate. They overlap, shift, collapse into each other. Some parts stay mechanical for a long time, others become organic quickly. It’s like a living organism.

ACL: Would you consider the audience as part of that organism, or is the audience distinct from it?

JE: In terms of making musical decisions, I’d say the audience doesn’t enter the equation. The music has to be as raw as it can be, not shaped by what people might enjoy more or less. What matters to me is that the creative process aims for what feels right in one’s own personal exploration, rather than being centered on external expectations. In the end, I believe that’s what can give the spectator a more powerful experience.

At the same time, once the music exists in a live setting, the audience becomes inseparable from it, an integral part of the organism. They shape the energy of the room, and that can have a deep impact on how the music unfolds. For instance, I find it much harder to record in a studio or film a live video without listeners. In those situations, you really have to work to get into the right head-space for the music to flow. Without an audience, it feels like the circle can’t quite close.

Photo by Alex Spagnolo. Courtesy Buh Records.

ACL: What is the role of food, whose names recur in Bombos y cencerros’ tracks, in connection with that kind of corporeality?

JE: I wouldn’t say food relates to my musical practice through the body, at least not in a direct way. It’s more about memory, obsession, and language. I don’t know, I just love food. So any chance I get, I’ll name something after it. However, there’s a kind of cadence or rhythm in the names of some Peruvian dishes that I really like, and I think it fits the music.

Cooking and eating have always gone hand in hand with making music for me. They’re both things I’ve spent a lot of time obsessing over, learning mostly through trial, error, and curiosity. I never studied cooking formally, but I even ended up doing some food styling work just from being a nerd about it. The way I taught myself how to cook feels very close to how I developed as a musician, by diving into it, repeating things, adjusting, until a personal way of doing things started to take shape.

I’m constantly missing the food I grew up with. Learning how to prepare it was the only way to keep it close. That act of remembering through making is part of why food names keep showing up in my track titles.

Sometimes it’s just because they sound beautiful. Other times, it’s the meanings they carry beneath the surface. For example, “Adobo y soplete” relates to what I feel are the essentials in food: the swing or groove of any culture, or even individual households within each culture, mostly coming from the spices used. Adobo is a mix of ingredients and spices that gives food a distinctive character. Plus, there’s the importance of fire (the soplete or blowtorch) in cooking, which adds an incredible layer of depth and savoriness.

“Štruklji y venados” comes from a friend’s house in Vrhnika, Slovenia. He has a house on a mountain there. I spent a few days there during a tour in 2023, eating this kind of family-made Slovenian sweet dumpling with honey for breakfast while watching deer roam outside. Great memories.

And “Ají de pollería” points to the vital role that chili peppers and sauces play in Peruvian cuisine. This spicy sauce is just one of many; it’s like every dish needs some kind of sauce to elevate it. The sauce isn’t an intrinsic part of the dish, but without it, the dish isn’t quite the same.

In any case, for me, food always makes great titles.

Photo by Alex Spagnolo. Courtesy Buh Records.

ACL: Would you say there’s a similarity between the way in which the body processes sounds and food?

JE: I would say my interest in food has more to do with what comes before that stage, with how things are made. I’m fascinated by the kinds of worlds that need to collide for something to come into existence, by how cultures shape their traditions over time, and how taste, texture, and value are perceived differently depending on where you’re from. That’s the part I feel most connected to in relation to my practice.

Still, I think there are points where food and music processing do meet. Both involve highly specialized systems in the body working toward very specific goals. Take the auditory system. It transforms air vibrations into electrical signals for the brain to decode. It evolved to help us survive and later to develop language, but now it also allows us to access emotions, memory, and a sense of belonging.

The digestive system works differently, but something similar happens. It’s a physical process that extracts nutrients for the body to thrive, yet it can also trigger powerful emotional responses. Both food and sound go through the body, they’re part of vital processes, and at the same time they can trigger strong emotions and memories.

Photo by Sofía Poncini. Courtesy Buh Records.

ACL: I know this is all very abstract, but there’s often forces and the act of hitting something in your work, from the title of the album to the track names unrelated to food (like “Carretillero” and “Adobo y Soplete”), up to the percussive character of prepared guitar. Would you say there’s something industrial to your music, as well as something particularly Latin American of that industrial way of processing and producing sound?

JE: Let’s see. “Carretillero” and “Adobo y Soplete” are actually still food-related in my mind. Carretillero refers to the street food carts you find all over Lima, Peru. And “Adobo y Soplete” is a kind of personal nod to the title of “Hacha y Machete”, the Héctor Lavoe song. In my case, it becomes seasoning and blowtorch, two essential tools in my food world.

That said, yes, I do think there’s something industrial in my music, not as a genre but more in how I approach the instrument. I remember once after a show we were eating pizza with friends and one of them was giving out made-up genre names to everyone’s music. When it was my turn, she said mine was “tropical industrial,” and it kind of stuck. It made sense to me.

Guitar preparations are a big part of that. Many different objects interact directly and physically with the instrument, including vibrations, tension, and how metal affects the pickups’ electromagnetic field. Then there’s the physicality of playing itself; everything is synced, limbs working interdependently. There’s a kind of rhythm-based machinery happening.

As for a specifically Latin American aspect, I’d say it’s there because it’s part of who I am. The kick drum and especially the cowbell come from my interest in claves, those rhythmic cells rooted in Afro-Latin traditions. Early on, I was obsessed with developing independence between my hands. I’d tap melodic lines with my left hand on the frets and play different clave rhythms with my right hand on the string portion behind the bridge. I’ve been using a Jazzmaster since 2011, and that back section became central to my playing. Eventually the cowbell was the next logical step, even if it felt odd at first.

ACL: I wanted to leave the question of rhythm as interview closer. To you, how does rhythm relate with technique first, and with corporeality second?

JE: Rhythm is deeply tied to both technique and the body. It’s often through the body that I find technical approaches, and rhythm is one of the main forces guiding those decisions. For rhythm to swing and feel natural, it has to come out naturally. You have to feel it in the body, and that takes time. That kind of feel comes from hours of playing, from cultural memory, from rhythms and patterns you absorb because they’ve been lived over time.

Photo by Sofía Poncini & Alex Spagnolo. Courtesy Buh Records.

In Latin American music, for example, there’s often a coexistence of binary and ternary feels. The rhythms never sit exactly on a strict grid; there are always subtle shifts and displacements that come from the feeling itself. These shifts have cultural roots. Styles like festejo, many kinds of cumbia, or huayno all have these microscopic shifts in timing, microrhythms you can’t fully grasp just by studying them. You have to immerse yourself in the music first.

Rhythmic vocabulary keeps expanding the more you work on it. There’s also something powerful in the unexpected: accidents, things you don’t fully understand, mistakes that lead somewhere interesting. But beyond that, a big part comes from playing, listening, and really paying attention to the sounds and music around you. In my own setup, where I play guitar, kick drum, cowbell, and control sounds with my feet, rhythm is what allows all these elements to move together. It’s not necessarily about keeping time, but about physical coordination, feeling, and responsiveness. When everything locks, it’s because the body and mind are fully engaged.

ACL: How are rhythm and free improvisation connected, and what role does that relation play in your work?

JE: Rhythm is just another resource in the palette of options. In my case, my musical discourse is heavily rooted in it; it just comes naturally.

I know that in some approaches to free improvisation, rhythm tends to get pushed aside, maybe out of fear that it will make things too concrete or less abstract. But I feel that, in that sense, free improvisation has sometimes turned into a genre more than a method.

Personally, I find it really powerful when rhythm shows up in a freely improvised context. It doesn’t limit the music; it expands it.

ACL: Thank you so much for your time, Jorge, I hope this interview has been productive. Is there anything you’d like to tell our readers before we go?

JE: Thanks David, it was really interesting to think about all these things related to my work and to try to put some of it into words. I’d say artistic processes are always deeply personal, and I think that’s what makes them interesting. Everything talked about in this interview reflects who I am and what works for me, but it doesn’t have to apply to anyone else.