La Macacoa is Puerto Rican Bay Area experimental sound artist Alexandra Buschman-Román (she/they). As a singer and improviser, they use multiple microphones, electronic hardware, and body gestures/movement to expand the voice. As a composer and electronic percussionist, they draw from Afro-Caribbean music and Taino (indigenous Caribbean) stories. Performances are mystical rituals.
Part of Alexandra’s roots are in the Puerto Rican classical and electronic music vanguard studying composition at the Music Conservatory with Manuel Ceide (Berio student), and Rafael Aponte Ledée (Ginastera student). They moved to Oakland in 2007 to study Composition and Improvisation with Fred Frith, Chris Brown, and Maggie Payne, and Deep Listening with Pauline Oliveros at Mills College.
Alexandra is half of avant-tropical duo Las Sucias, with Danishta Rivero. They also perform and tour under monicker Demonsleeper, singing songs about nightmares and lucid dreams using dark ambient, drone noise, and heavy somnambulist pulses.
Photo: Adam Neal Gochnauer.
