Real name: Margarita Saavedra

Effective period / Period of releases: 1988 - 2005

Alquimia is a Mexican female multi-instrumentalist and vocalist with a background in electronic and classical music. Her vocal style combines elements of avantgarde, ethnic, medieval, classical and improvised music. Her scores border on ambient, world and psychedelic music.

Creator of enigmatic, sonic vistas, explorer of the ancient legends of the Aztecs and Mayans, weaver of multi-faceted choral soundscapes... Alquimia (pronounced: al-key-meea) is all of these and more. Singing in languages such as Spanish, English, French and her native idiom Nahuatl, she uses her voice to create multilayered choirs and electronically altered vocal soundscapes, fusing Pre-Hispanic world music with futuristic electronics.

While her basic tracks feature vocals and piano, Alquima enhances her recordings with layers of looped vocals, electronic processors, sound effects, samples, synthesizers, gongs and bells. The result is a sound that combines the musical traditions of Latin America with influences of rock, pop, avant-garde, classical and improvisational music. Described as "an ethereal chorale of great beauty" …. "Alquima aims to dazzle, entrance , relax and excite, and, does so on all counts," by Audion (UK.), "….her ethereal vocal technique and her sensuous sonic palette are, at once, exotically seductive and disarmingly eerie." (London Musician´s Collective, UK.)

Alquimia was born in Mexico and developed an early love of music and singing, partly from her mother, a classical opera singer. She went on to study in France and Canada, before making her permanent home in England. However, although she has often been far from home, her interest in the ethnic musical styles of her home country, made her learn various pre-Columbian percussion instruments and flutes, while her search for new sounds inspired her use of modern music technology. She has developed some revolutionary singing techniques (some of them involving electronic processors), opening up for her a whole range of electronic and natural new sounds to experiment and compose with.

Alquimia has recorded many albums, both as a solo artist and with writers and musicians such as H.J Roedelius, R. Gleisberg, Peter Mergener, Zinkl, Mark Powell, Art of Infinity, and others. She participated in Cou Cou Bazar project with Carlos Robledo.