Fréquences de Barcelone

Fréquences de Barcelone
duration: 12min20sec
premiere: Festival Musica, Strasbourg, France, 30.09.1997
Prize La Muse en Circuit/Sacem/Radio France, III International Competition on Radiophonic Art
Honorary Mention Stockholm Electronic Arts Awards

… and with the falling of the ear upon the city comes the massive movement, gesture, flux of physical incorporation of the city, that gives to the city its psychosis of imagery and language, the amalgam of banality and explosivity, its wildness, fragmentation, transformation.
The above text is an extract from Stephen Barber’s Fragments of the European City. I permitted myself to substitute the word “eye” of the original text for the word “ear”.

This composition is based on recordings made in Barcelona during the summer of 1996. I gathered nearly four hours of sound material comprising a wide range of environmental sounds from different locations such as the port, the seaside, the main cathedral and its surroundings, Las Ramblas’s promenade and tascas (bars or taverns). The original recordings were then edited and combined with additional abstract sound material that was generated by re-processing unused sounds from some of my previous compositions. My aim was to stage Barcelona’s soundscape, to explore and unveil its dramatic potential through interconnected scenes and perspectives appearing along an acousmatic journey across the Barcelona cityscape. Fréquences de Barcelone was produced during a residency at the studios of La Muse en Circuit Studio (France).
It was published on the CD Oui-Dire, Radiophonic Art by SACEM/La Muse en Circuit (1997).