Poq - Digital Download

Release date 18th April 2025

Tracklist:

1.)    Ch'umilkaj and Alex Hentze - Poq

A brand new single from The Last Scream album series is being released on 18th April 2025 ahead of Earth Day, featuring the sounds of the extinct Atitlán grebe (Podilymbus gigas) and Guatemalan artists Ch’umilkaj and Alex Hentze.

The song ‘Poq’ was created by Kaqchikel singer-songwriter Ch’umilkaj and electronic musician Alex Hentze. It incorporates a 1963 recording of Atitlán grebe courtship displays by LaBastille—possibly the only one in existence. Hentze created an electronic foundation based around bird’s sounds, while Ch’umilkaj wrote the vocal melody in Kaqchikel, inspired by memories of the poc, shared by Santos Sacarías Mendoza Pérez (78), a Tz'utujil elder from San Juan La Laguna.

This release is part of EarthSonic, a global project from In Place of War that works with indigenous communities, musicians, cultural organisers, scientists, climate activists and experts to tell the story of climate change through music. 

Working with scientists from around the world, EarthSonic created two new wildlife sound collections for The Last Scream – the first in collaboration with the Fonoteca Neotropical Jacques Vielliard (FNJV) archive (from the Museu de Diversidade Biológica – UNICAMP, Brazil), which is curated by Professor Felipe Toledo; and the second including sounds collected from individual scientists and institutions, curated by EarthSonic’s Sounds Archive manager and musician/nature sound recordist Merlyn Driver. 

Artwork designed and illustrated by Vickie Amiralis