Elysia Crampton

Elysia Crampton, a transgender of Bolivian heritage born and raised in the Mojave Desert, launched in Los Angeles her project E+E with the album E&E (2008), followed by the EP Bound Adam (2011), which contains a sort of ambient remix of sacred choral music (The Totaled Angelica) and the sinister seven-minute sound collage The Fired Fortress. E+E then released the EP Smile (2012) and the seven-song mini-album The Light That You Gave Me to See You (2013). The latter mixes Andean folk instruments, electronic sounds, pop samples and hip-hop beats in dizzying sound collages like Reinada and Steered, with best results in the mutating reggaeton of Big-Fire.

She adopted her real name after relocating to Virginia for American Drift (Blueberry, 2015) and the EP Moth/Lake (2015). The former contains the nine-minute Latin-tinged ambient suite Axacan, which is a rather amateurish fusion of field recordings, electronic melodies and minimalist repetition, the atmospheric collage of Petrichrist with a repeated melodic fragment and a typewriter-like beat, and the much more original ten-minute Wing (five minutes of organ spirals inspired by the Doors' Light my Fire and organ drones inspired by Nico's lugubrious hamronium litanies, followed by five minutes of robotic dance beats and vocal samples). Add the hypnotic Amazonic jungle dance Lake from the single. The formula had already crystallyzed: a fusion of electronics and Andean folk music with occasional ventures in dance music.

Demon City (Break World, 2016) collects collaborations with producers such as Tobias "Why Be" Lee (the the sophisticated hip-hop of Irreducible Horizon), Eric "Rabit" Burton (the superb whirling cacophony of After Woman and The Demon City), Chino Amobi (the hysterical African dance Dummy Track and especially the disintegrating cubistic saxophone fanfare Children of Hell), and Felix "Lexxi" Lee of the "Endless Parties" fame (the jovial synth-pop ditty Red Eyez).

She collaborated with Kelela and Adrian Piper on Final Exam (2016). She moved to a town near Sacramento in late 2016.

Spots y Escupitajo (Vinyl Factory, 2017) contains 14 songs, mostly microscopic ones but also the nine-minute, pensive, piano-based fantasia Spittle.

The EP Elysia Crampton (Break World, 2018) contains six brief instrumentals that sound like a condensed compendium of her major works: an impressionistic vignette (Nativity), an industrial nightmare (Solilunita), a hypnotic dance (Oscollo), a chaotic fanfare (Pachuyma), a surrealistic clockwork (Orion Song), and a futuristic musichall skit (Moscow). The generation that had not known Brian Eno was mesmerized.

The concept album Orcorara 2010 (2020), originally the soundtrack of an art installation, toys with a number of techniques without settling into anyone in particular, from the percussive feast of Spring of Wound to the ambient tranquillity of Crest and to the sinister glitchy drones of Abolition. The eight-minute opener, Secret Ravine, is in fact a manifesto of this method, running the gamut from hellish electronics to Steve Reich-style piano minimalism with all sorts of detours, including a cute vibrato guitar riff. Unfortunately too much of the album is taken up by spoken-word sections (mostly poetry reading), notably the endless 15-minute Morning Star-Red Glare-Sequoia Bridge. This album also marks her venture into semi-classical music: if Homeless is a rather amateurish piano sonata, a female singer intones the prayer-like chamber lied Crucifixion, a much more poignant piece.

She then adopted the moniker Chuquimamani-Condori for the four-song EP Uta Pachanqiri (2019), followed by the more substantial seven-song mini-album Quirquincho Medicine (2019), a set of piano solos, each one a minimalist repetition of simple piano patterns (Ghost Lift Song, Spider Medicine Song, Family Court Song). Chuquimamani-Condori then released the seven-song mini-album DJ E (2023) that consists of folktronic sound collages, mash-ups of Andean folk songs and electronic sounds. The resulting plunderphonics is mostly trivial but poignant at least in the tragic vortex of Eat My Cum and exhilarating in the swirling fanfare of Know. UntIl I Find You Again

Meanwhile, her brother Joshua Crampton, born in San Diego, released the sprawling 96-minute The Heart's Wash (2020), which contains 15 guitar solos in the tradition of Roy Montgomery, notably: the eleven-minute The Heart (slow reverbed and increasingly distorted overtones, the nine-minute highlight Ren with disorienting electronic noise, the eight-minute hypnotic mantra Wash, the 20-minute Axolotl, an indulgent parade of slow, simple chords that eventually mutate into fuzzed guitar sounds. Joshua Crampton followed this ambitious work with the four lengthy solos of 4 (2021): the 21-minute Fantasy IV, which spans a broad spectrum, the seven-minute Service, a concentrate of crunchy garage riffs with a lengthy coda of decay, and the eleven-minute dissonant sonata Jamp'atu Colores (with field recordings). It's all tentative and a little inconclusive. Profundo Amor (2023) is a set of eleven brief pieces that combine guitar and electronics. Profundo Amor boasts a good riff, Guerrero Toxico is sweltering noise, but the whole is indulgent. Estrella Por Estrella (2024) is far more energetic workout. First it unleashes the stormy Unifying Force, then it doubles down with the thick metal-ish Eternero, and it even disrupts itself with the wall of noise of Acidito. The seven-song mini-album Anata (2026) is a more direct tribute to his ethnic roots, although one can guess this only from the titles of the songs. In fact, Ch'uwanchana and Mallku Diablon indulge in extreme dissonance.

Together (when she was already 40 and he was 42), the Crampton siblings released Los Thuthanaka (2025), credited to Los Thuthanaka, a tribute to the Aymara culture of the Andes. The opener, Q'iwanakax-Q'iwsanakax Utjxiwa/ The Queer-People Medicines Are Here, makes it clear that this is a sound collage of free-form electronica, guitar solos and twisted folk samples. In too many cases the process is repetitive and trivial, like the distorted carillon of Jallalla Ayllu Pahaza Marka Qalaqutu Pakaxa/ Victory Ayllu Pahaza Marka Calacoto Pacajes or the eleven-minute fanfare Kullawada 'Awila'/ Queer Grandma. Some of them, notably Huayno 'Phuju'/ Spring Fount, feel simply like electronic remixes of folk music. A true moment of madness is Parrandita 'Sariri Tunupa'/ Tunupa the Walker, where the dense blend of electronic sounds, guitar distortion and samples yields maximum tension, but even here the duo doesn't know what to do with it and the piece ends in bland drones.