PS005

Beatriz Ferreyra / Natasha Barrett Souvenirs Cachés / Innermost

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12" vinyl / digital download

Persistence of Sound presents a split LP from two leading voices in electroacoustic music. It would be hard to find a better-suited combination of contemporary acousmatica on one record. More info

Side A

Souvenirs Cachés (Hidden Memories) [ 12:27 ]
With fifteen international concerts cancelled, Beatriz Ferreyra spent the first half of 2021 organising her ‘sonotech,’ [library of sounds] and composing ‘Souvenirs Cachés’ for Semibreve Festival, Portugal: “I took my time to clean up my sounds and on hearing them, I began to hear and see a music, as forms and colours that change; it’s like a dialogue between me and, well… me.” Souvenirs Cachés is a free journey through a distinctive mix of Ferreyran sounds, a carousel of disembodied vocal sounds, growls and susurrations, sprinkled across the stereo image, and joined intermittently by sustained drones or ethereal, melodic whines, with a hint of prepared piano. Hernan Gomez’s percussive and manipulated flute is featured throughout.
Murmureln [ 03:57 ]
Ferreyra grew up in Argentina to the sound of her aunt singing a capella the traditional Comparsita tango. Her Argentinian roots are explored here, in this effortlessly playful and rhythmic rendition of an old Comparsita, in a collage of treated vocal sounds and sampled fragments of tango musicians Astor Piazzola, Anibal Troilo, Susana Rinaldi and Roberto Goyeneche.

Side B

Innermost [ 18:46 ]

Innermost was first composed with digital video artist Marc Downie, with natural but abstracted recordings from two outdoor Norwegian events. These were mass community celebrations, particular to Norwegian culture and devoid of political anxiety, although some of the electronically-treated, disembodied vocals seem to express elements of angst or anger. The interplay of manipulated vocal sounds and marching band samples contextualises the music in the open acoustics of a public event. She describes the second section as an example of her notion of ‘spatial counterpoint,’ where many layers of minimal pitched sounds linger, intersect and interact. The work was originally diffused with 3D ambisonics through 36 loudspeakers and used mass surveillance gesturerecognition technology translated into sound.

In this carefully-crafted stereo mix, the sense of space and occasion is no less present, with harsh shouts and whistles accompanying silvery wails and whines, that crescendo to a cacophony of mechanical drilling and juddering engines. A more harmonious marching band passes by, leaving a trail of granulated reverberation, and hints of tango rhythm interject occasionally, as the marching band rataplan continues its way, along with distant cheering.

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