In 2009, the Orquestra of Chaos, then formed by Carlos Gómez and myself, started Sonidos en Causa, an initiative that led us to make high quality recordings of the sound heritage of a series of Latin American cultural contexts in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica and Mexico, the environmental surroundings of which, as a result of human presence, were and continue to be subject to irreversible changes in the short and medium term. Intangible heritage, and with it sound, is extremely vulnerable throughout the planet. Once these changes have taken place, which, if humans continue to pursue economic growth as if the planet's resources were unlimited, seem inevitable, sounds and, with them, their causes, will have disappeared forever.

The subject of interest in the project was the evolution of the soundscape in contexts where human development has affected its composition in recent history. We were able to carry this out thanks to the support of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development. The object of our recordings was all kinds of sound environments that can be classified according to the level of human-origin noise pollution, so that the repertoire of recordings, totalling one terabyte in size, covers a range of landscapes from the most anthropogenically charged to the most virgin. As the areas of maximum pollution are located in the towns, while those of minimum or no pollution are in places far away from them, our sound recordings took place along routes drawn from points in the towns that we assumed to be the most heavily polluted by anthropogenic sounds, towards places that we assumed to be less polluted or not polluted at all.

The sounds used in Piedra Bugre's composition come only from the four-minute treatment of four recordings of an initial duration of twenty minutes each, made by Carlos Gómez between 23 July and 2 August 2010 in the third country we traveled to, Argentina. Initially, we had planned for our activity the neighbourhoods of Iguazú and Wanda, in the north of Misiones, but in the process of discussing and updating the project with Gonzalo Biffarella, who had made prospective trips and a series of very important contacts, at his suggestion, we replaced these initial areas with the surroundings of the towns of Quilino, in Ischilín, northwest of Córdoba and El Soberbio, northeast of Misiones, on the western bank of the Uruguay River, which at that point separates Argentina from Brazil.

The coordinates of each recording site as well as the altitude were determined by GPS and registered in the recordings themselves. The sound recordings, which include 214 files in 54 gigabytes for this Argentinean campaign alone, were made by Carlos Gómez and, to a lesser extent, by myself. Gonzalo Biffarella adjusted the production details necessary for the campaign to take place in the context of the well-known: the north of Argentina. All of us, Gonzalo Biffarella, Carlos Gómez and myself, contributed to the photographic record. My role, besides the initial conception of the project, the details of which were outlined together with Carlos Gómez, was to listen deeply during the recordings, as well as to take textual notes about the visual, environmental, cultural and sound characteristics of each place, a small part of which, like the sounds and images, have been used in the making of this work.

In the surroundings of Quilino, in accordance with the methodological guidelines of Sonidos en Causa, Gonzalo's idea was to take samples between Salinas Grandes, on the border of the province of Córdoba with the provinces of Catamarca, Santiago del Estero and La Rioja, and the agricultural settlements near the Campo Comunitario of La Libertad. For years, these have been gaining ground on the native peasants, small goat farmers, who have been pushed off their land into the salt flats, an inhospitable place where they can in no way carry out their activities. So much so, and so muted is the struggle for land, that the peasants have been forced to organise themselves into various associations to confront the industrial offensive, which is harassing them with all the support of the state. This first part of our sound recordings will conclude in the city of Quilino itself, which, with just over 4000 inhabitants, is the largest economic centre near Salinas Grandes. If there is no telephone coverage or Internet access between La Libertad and Salinas Grandes, this is not the case near Quilino, where it is possible to find free WiFi access points.

In Misiones, we start our journey from El Soberbio, a town founded at the beginning of the 20th century, now with just under 4000 inhabitants, towards Saltos del Moconá, about 70 kilometres to the north, up the Uruguay River. There is only one cybercafé in the whole area and some closed WiFi networks which, on first inspection, one cannot tell whether they are public services or private devices.

Along this route, where Argentine telephone coverage is increasingly poor, the settlers, most of whom seem to come to the region from Brazil, tend to settle where it suits them, whether the place has an owner or not, to grow yerba mate, sponge, cane, tobacco, corn, oats, citrus, citronella and pineapple. Tobacco companies usually convince them to grow tobacco. They build them a drying shed, provide them with seeds and buy all their production. It is said that after a few years, the land gets sick and doesn't produce any more. The settlers are then forced to sell it to newcomers and occupy another one. The former landowners have the option of buying it back, but if they do not, the state seems to have undertaken to give them a title of ownership after 20 years.

Logging of hardwood is perhaps the most important economic activity in the region. It is carried out by the companies Harriet S. A. and Laharrague S. A., owners of a vast territory of 253,000 hectares. In the last century, Juan Alberto Harriet and León Laharrague ceded 999 of them for the creation of the Moconá Provincial Park. These agricultural, livestock, commercial, industrial and financial companies exploit the remaining 252,000, it is said, in agreement with the Ministry of Ecology and Renewable Natural Resources, which regulates the logging of some species. We do not know the details of the conditions under which such logging is permitted. However, we have seen huge lorries loaded with wood drive through the area at ungodly hours, when road traffic is explicitly prohibited. The furthest point we reached inside that particular reserve was the López Lining Bridge, where we took sound shots. A little further on, close to the 32,000 hectares of the Esmeralda Reserve, expropriated in 1992 from the company Obraje Esmeralda S. A. F. A. I. e I, which houses the Marcio Ayres Biological Station and which we were unable to access due to bad weather, the Guaraní villages begin. It is shocking to think that the land where all these people live belongs to companies with the right to destroy them or to a state that ignores them.

The journeys are difficult here. Getting to the heart of the Missionary Forest takes days of walking.

In this region, where oxcarts are a common sight along the paths and the asphalt road, the new nascent industry is ecotourism, which we assume is the reason for the construction of the new access road to the facilities of the Moconá Provincial Park, where we also do sound recordings. At present, the park is isolated every time the waters rise, because the footbridge that crosses the Yabotí River is completely covered, so that wading is impossible for normal vehicles. At the moment, these works together with the sawmills seem to be the biggest source of anthropogenic noise in the region.

Early morning south of the Campo Comunitario. La Libertad
S30.19.086-O064.55.500 . 07.49 . 24.07.2010 . 252 metres in altitude
Microphone facing southeast

After a traumatic drive on sand, driving an old three-gear truck that I had never driven before, in the dark, with fogged windows, no heating and four people in the front seat, we stop at a random place. You're going too far to the right of the road, Mario said a moment ago. Follow the tracks. Maybe. I can't see anything, I thought, but if you say so. Many people think that you have to follow the tracks of other cars on unpaved roads. It's not always the right thing to do. When we took a detour, we got stuck in the dust, because the "chata", which is the name given to the trucks around here, didn't have enough strength to get out of the rut. Its first gear is too long. My companions had to push. I'm sorry.

At dawn, before anyone else, the little washer sings. They call it that because of its resemblance in sound to a washer (which here is understood as a "cojinete") when one of its balls gets stuck.

The rooster's crow, which has not left us since three o'clock in the morning, now distant, has been replaced almost at once by the sound of wild species. The little washer, which was the only one when we arrived, has also gone quiet. But many other species are singing. From the rhythm of one of them, I would say that it sounds something like a turtledove. It's a bit hoarser than the image I've kept of those birds since I first became aware of their singing in the centre of France.

The recording has begun in a spectacular way, with a gush of monumental sound. Perhaps it was a bird that was trying to scare us off. It wouldn't be the first time that something like this has happened to us. Now, the songs are not very dense but very varied. Well spaced out, they manifest themselves in the form of sparks that come from all sides. The tired rhythm of the dove, which multiplies in all directions, is a kind of continuous pedal. It is superimposed on the gradual increase in light, in almost continuous correspondence with a strange sensation of expansion of the acoustic space.

At this time the new appearances are sudden and frequent. A bubbling trill is the new genre of soft explosion of sound that is produced here and there. Is it several individuals answering each other, is it one bird going from one side to the other or is it several answering each other and going from one side to the other? There is no time to answer myself, because a distant truck seems to be approaching. No. It leaves and when it stops being perceived it allows the listening of new explosions of trills. They are many and faint. They compete with high-pitched squawks, generated by jostling, as if they were giving themselves a boost, which contrasts clearly with the somewhat more serious squawk of another bird flying from west to east. A new actor wakes up and answers with a similar one. It is a rapid whistle of ascending and then descending frequency in about one hundred and fifty milliseconds. The turtledoves appear everywhere and are silent for a moment when the whistles of others, more agile and emphatic, acquire prominence. It seems as if they are determined to make the cantus firmus of everything else. Anyone would say that they constitute a kind of texture on which the others sit. But texture does not exist by itself. Like space, which comes into existence and curves with matter, texture is generated by the existence of sound itself. It does not exist, unless someone sings or something sounds, rhythmically or not. That is something that many musicians should understand. If the doves were not there, the texture would be made up of sudden, isolated flapping, distant squawks and moving chirps, bubbling trills; none too present. The sound space expands and contracts in the mind of the listener. Thus, the new bubbling trill that springs up in the north can be experienced as an expansion that is followed by the contraction of a descending whistle, almost chirping, uncertain in the syntax of the heights, but repeated with insistence towards the southwest.

Carlos is focused on listening, and either he doesn't realize that we have exceeded the time limit, or he doesn't want to stop. Yes, stop. No: he asks for five more minutes of recording. Let's see if we can get the "chata" going after so much time standing in the cold.

Baños de Unquillo. Take near the microphone
S30.11.711-O065.01.119. 07.59 . 25.07.2010 . 174 metres in altitude
Microphone facing east

Before arriving here, we stopped at the house of fat Ramón, who lives near the Mill, with his mother, Mrs. Alonsa, 94 years old. Still in the dark, on the way Mario told us that the investors had fenced off his house so that his cattle could not access the surrounding fields. The Peasant Movement helped him by removing the fences, but later, they paid people who came with the police. They came to settle on the land that Ramón had used all his life. Again, the Peasant Movement came to his aid to dialogue with the paid occupants, who finally left. It has been two years since this episode took place. No one has come back to bother Ramón, who, since then, feels very indebted to the Peasant Movement of Córdoba. Mario wants him to come with us because, as a former salt grinder, he knows the salt mine well and can guide our movements in that flat and strangely reverberant desert.

Ramón is a man of few words. I met him yesterday at the birthday party of Mario's son Elias, who turned 17. He was looking at me out of the corner of his eye not knowing much to say and waiting for me to say something. However, I did not feel the urge to speak. I greeted, introduced myself and kept quiet, because we were not alone and I was just a newcomer. Carlos and Gonzalo had gone with Mario to charge their batteries at Javier and Marcelo's house, so I was at a family celebration with hardly anyone I knew. Then I understood the reason for their expectation. Mario and Horacio had told him about us and that we would need his help for our sound recordings in Salinas Grandes. That's why he told me that he was at my disposal for whatever was needed. In a few words, Ramón seemed to me to be a sensitive man who, surrounded by children, was dedicated to saving the bees from drowning in the well at Mario's house. I also found him somewhat weak, because he was taking orders from a much younger man who showed up with a younger brother of Amalia at the last minute in his brand new white van and wanted to question me about everything, especially my opinion on local political issues related to La Libertad and others further away, such as the crisis in Spain. As usual in these cases, I played dumb. I did not like his attitude towards Ramón, an older man who should be respected by a younger one, nor did I find the ideology behind his questions recommendable. I just threw my balls out. I think Mario was laughing to himself.

The first stop on the way to Salinas Grandes is the surroundings of the Baños de Unquillo, a kind of sanctuary where, Ramón and Mario tell us, people come to drink the waters with the intention of curing their ailments. It is said that the water, cold in summer and hot in winter, is indicated in the treatment of problems related to bones and joints.

When I get out of the "chata", I feel the aggression of the acid-base environment of this place in the little skin that I have exposed. Cold and salty is all I feel. I can't take pictures because the camera battery is low and the cold blocks it. As yesterday, I was able to take photos again, unexpectedly, as the atmosphere warmed up, now I know that it's not that the battery is totally used up. In a while, when the sun warms up a little more, I'll be able to take pictures again. That's why I've asked Gonzalo to take pictures of everything with his newly loaded iPhone. Especially of the altar dedicated to the Virgin at the back of the building, which, unique, totally isolated, next to a watercourse where the sky and the fence are reflected, stands on an old dune. This land before the salt mines, sandy and somewhat wrinkled, forms dunes where psamophilous bushes such as the jume grow, some cactus and shrubs, a few green ones, but, in general, isolated and dry. The rest is open white space, which is experienced enormously because of a mysterious echo.

In the background and in the distance, equally distributed in all the places covered with vegetation, the doves sing. The birds are everywhere and communicate. Today I don't hear little hawks. Is it because they're silent? There is a black one there, in the water. In general, the level is low, but you can hear very clearly long whistles rising and repeated. They are reflected. But where? In the salt? On the flat, salty ground that extends a little further? Not only are they ascending, other times it is a short, almost trilling, ascending and descending whistle. Far from being palindromic, those whistles in glissando are spectacular. But almost more so is the echo they generate. And why are these more reflected than the other sounds if the space is the same? To say that the limits of space condition the resonance at some frequencies more than others does not explain anything. I need to know more. The only visible limits of this space are the soil and vegetation, mostly fine trunks and quite a few green or dry leaves. If it is not only the salt and the flatness of the ground that determine the reflection of the whistles in this way, the phenomenon may also have to do with the fact that they are the most intense sounds that make up this landscape. Furthermore, as they are whistles, their spectrum is very simple, so that any colouring after their production can be very evident. But I insist: all these reflections do not explain anything. Perhaps nothing can explain anything.

The sun rises and the temperature rises a little. I can write more comfortably, but the only new thing is a chirping to the south followed by a swaying of whistles to the southwest. It's cold again. Normal: it's time; it's almost 20 minutes past 8 in the morning.

The little black bird is still standing there in front of us. He is not worried about us and he is right: there is nothing in us that he needs to worry about.

Carlos has asked us to repeat the recording at the same coordinates, but leaving the microphone alone, because, with the input level required to record such low intensity sounds, any rubbing of the clothes, any movement can be heard. So we all went back to the bathroom building. Even though it protected us, it was so cold that I didn't sit down. The saddle was left leaning against the wall. At one point during the listening, very similar to the previous shot, I thought that it was in danger of being forgotten in this particular place. For a while, I fabled the idea that a pious visitor to the sanctuary would find it and take it away as if it were a gift from heaven. I even imagined him blessing God for having given it to him. The fable then led me to the dilemma that it is contradictory for one to think that God will benefit him as a result of another's misfortune.

The fact is that, when everyone was on the "chata", I was doing the very difficult manoeuvre to get out of the bathhouse, and Mario asked me to stop. For a moment I thought that I was going to hit some obstacle that I couldn't see. A stick back there, I thought. When Mario got off the "chata", we all thought that his intention was to guide me, because the manoeuvre was really very hard: I had to turn the steering wheel completely right and left about 6 times and change forward and backward at every turn; there are four of us in front, the assisted driving system didn't exist when the vehicle was conceived and every time I change gear I have to give poor Gonzalo a knock on the leg, he must have had enough of me.

I smiled when I saw Mario come back with my portable saddle. What a failed act. I have to analyse it.

Yabotí Biosphere Reserve
S27.09.319-O053.59.063 . 08.52 . 30.07.201 . 339 metres in altitude
Microphone facing west

The vegetation, which is extremely varied, includes some palm trees that remind us of the Brazilian buritís. One difference is that here they do not show the water courses. There is water everywhere. On the way, Guillermo, our motorcyclist today, tells us that Harriet and Laharrague are the timber exploiters of the Yabotí Biosphere Reserve, which has a total of over two hundred and fifty thousand hectares. As he is passionate about plants, I asked him to tell us about the trees in the area. The first one he shows us is the guava tree, whose trunk lasts fifty years in the open. Then he tells us about the guayca, a species of laurel made of soft but resistant wood, about grapia, a tree about ten metres long, with a rounded crown and a white trunk, about a boraginacea called black parrot or peteribí, which is much taller, and about the missionary cedar, sapindal, with deciduous leaves and nothing like the idea I had of cedar until now. They are leafless at this time of year, so amidst all this exuberance, they give the impression of being dead. But it's not like that and in this forest it's not the only tree that gets naked. For example, the Australian cedar, which reaches great heights, is also a deciduous sapindal. It is the toona ciliata... Australian? So, this is no primary forest. No. Oh, boy. I was confused. He shows us one with a trunk and branches covered by a parasite and explains that there are few foreign species anyway. In general, they have been introduced to this forest because of the properties of their wood. Laurel is native to here. The cañarana is also native. I think it is similar to what we previously referred to as a missionary cedar. And that tall one near the Australian cedar? It's the red timbó, with a very straight trunk that reaches thirty metres. Its fruits produce abortions in the cattle that eat them. The dark green one, the Guarani people call tarumá. It has evergreen leaves and thorny branches. It is used for cuts and the tum, for the boats. The alecrín, here they call it ibirá-pepe, gives a very good wood for the roast. I have not seen the tum nor the alecrín. I think he has called a liana sipo, which he tells us the Guarani call monkey's ladder. But the sipo is an African tree... He explains so many things that I don't want to interrupt him with details.

He then shows us a large-leafed shrub he calls tabaco bravo and explains: "I smoke bravo, in Brazil". The native bush regenerates in his presence. It is now blossoming. Next to it, a carqueja, or carquexia; Guillermo says it is good for the liver, but as medicinal properties it is spectacular. It is the panacea, as I have seen around here: antianemic, antiasthmatic, antibiotic, antidiarrheal, antidiabetic, antidispetitive, antiflu, antihydropic, anti-inflammatory, anti-rheumatic, anti trypanosoma cruzi, appetite stimulant, aromatic, cholagogue, purgative, digestive, diuretic, emollient, eupeptic, hepatic stimulant, febrifuge, hepatoprotective, hypocholesterolemic, hypoglycemic, laxative, anti schistosomosis, sweating, tonic, vermifuge. Other sources say that it is a natural substitute for Viagra, much less dangerous, and that it stimulates women's sexual appetite. I don't know if it's true, but it's consistent with the fact that it tends to lower the pressure.

The tacuapi and tacuruzú are tacuaras, reeds inside which there is a water with coagulating properties. Another plant with a water reservoir that can be drunk is the giant nettle. They are native, like those pindó palms. They have a lot of fibre and ruin the blades of chainsaws. Here the knowledge of the trees is dyed with wood elements. The whole region lives from that, we know. "And those are mamonas, very oily," he points to a plant with very large, webbed leaves. "Well, that's castor oil". If I'm not mistaken, even the Greeks knew about this plant from the Egyptians. There's everything in this forest! Of course. "That wide grass is everywhere. Here we call it long capin". While William was telling us his secrets, the saracurae, some greyish birds that mainly run, have been appearing here and there all along the way.

When choosing a recording location, we have difficulty in deciding on microphone placement strategies. Finally we place them on the right side of the road next to some pindó palms, facing the thickest part of the jungle, which is where we believe that more sounds will be captured. Soon, whistles of apparently different origin begin to sound and, very timidly, high-pitched chirps and squawks emerge. Every time we head down to record, the activity of the preparations leaves almost all the animals in the environment mute. It takes some time for them to forget about us and return to their own business.

An insistent squawk comes from the air, remains nearby for a few moments and then leaves. There are still crickets singing, chirping and gurgling. Another more subtle squawk is almost masked by the crickets; just like a descending chirp that, when it becomes silent, makes the passage of cars on the road more evident. There are also logging machines here. The song of the insects is definitely like that of the grasshoppers in the Pyrenees and so many other places. I found it hard to accept, but once it is written down it doesn't seem so strange to me.

A breeze is now rising from the east. Everyone in the place said yesterday that it would rain today. It's in my interest to doubt it. Someone's anorak makes a sound and the breeze takes a break only to become harder. The thermal image is not congruent with the sound image. The latter does not give the impression that it has stopped: it is confused with the distant rubbing of tyres on the asphalt. When the vehicle approaches, it is clear that it is a truck. The logging machines are constantly working around here. The breeze blows in. If it continues like this, it will soon turn into wind and may end up bringing rain. It comes from the west.

Fire
S27.11.239-O054.06.266 . 19.47 . 30.07.201 . 402 metres in altitude
Microphone facing northeast

Guillermo told us a while ago when we passed by Mesa Redonda - a crossroads, but on the map it appears as a town - that lumber dealers and Guaraníes travel along the road. The detour leads to Saltos del Moconá, but everyone says that the road is impracticable, so we haven't tried it. Pity, we will have to go by boat, but it will be in a few days and then Carlos, the motorist in the boat, without letting go for a moment of the pumpkin and the light bulb, will tell us very interesting things about the geology of the river and the origin of the settlers. He will be the first Spanish-speaking native of the area who believes that the settlers do not come from Brazil but from Central Europe and that they are the same kind of people on both sides of the border. It's the people here, he insists. Well: the people here are the Guarani, but it's better not to contradict him; after all, we are visitors.

We passed through here yesterday and were left with the idea of filming in the vicinity, so returning to El Soberbio at night, we saw a fire not far from the road. Guillermo tells us that the settlers are burning the jungle with the intention of gaining space for the tobacco plantation. He himself proposes that we record it. It seems as if he has a personal interest in it, because it could even be dangerous. If he is convinced that we can do it, why not? After all, he knows the terrain.

Aggressive and very fast, the fire is huge compared to other fires I have seen close up. The wind brings it towards the point on the road where we have stopped the 4x4. I hope it doesn't go through it. It has several important spotlights. When we arrived, it seemed that there was only one, but then a few more were declared. Now, listening, one can clearly perceive three different places where the crackling of the flames is greater. It is intensified by gusts of wind. Behind the fire, music and dogs can be heard in the house. But people are not only there. There are settlers much closer by. They have come with their axes to keep us company. As if they were watching us. When a motorbike with three people on it passed by, the wind picked up and, with it, the fire. It has been brutal. As it burns, the dry branches raise high flames and then the increase in temperature is noticed from my observation point, about forty metres away.

Guillermo thinks that it is no longer safe to stay here, so we leave before the end of the twenty minutes of recording.