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On sale NOW!$30 ADV | $35 DOOR
Doors 7pm | Show 8pm
Fully seated show - first come, first served
Caterina Barbieri
Website [https://caterinabarbieri.com/] | Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/cat_barbieri/] | Bandcamp [https://caterinabarbieri.bandcamp.com/]
A drop in the ocean of time; a wave cascading through the body. Since her breakthrough album Patterns of Consciousness (Important Records, 2017), Italian composer Caterina Barbieri hasused vivid modular synthesis to explore how sound can induce both metaphysical and psycho-physical responses in the listener. Subsequent albums have been met with growingcritical acclaim: the razor-sharp rave melodies of Ecstatic Computation (Editions Mego, 2019);then Spirit Exit (light-years, 2022) which incorporated a “bigger universe of sounds” — stringsand guitar — while emphasising the potent dualities at the heart of Barbieri’s compositions:monumental and intimate, pristine and dense, unerringly futuristic yet capable of evoking a deep
primeval energy. An important evolution of her music, Spirit Exit was described by critics as
“incantatory and beautiful” and a “record of spellbinding songcraft.”
However, Barbieri’s probing electronics have never been contained by the album format. Her
practise, informed by an education in classical guitar and electro-acoustic composition at the
Conservatory of Bologna and Stockholm’s famed centre for sound art, Elektronmusikstudion, relies on live performance as means of compositional development, growing each song in front of an audience, and in a unique space, as if it is a “living organism.” This is how the tracks on
Patterns of Consciousness and Ecstatic Computation were written, gradually assuming asweeping, crystalline form over the course of many months. The latter was hailed by Pitchforkas a “dreamachine for the ears,” describing Barbieri as a master of “entrancing listeners.”
Spirit Exit was composed under different circumstances, during the isolation of a Covid
lockdown. Its full artistic vision was realised across a series of ambitious live performances
including a sold out show at The Barbican and appearances at prestigious venues including
Haus der Kunst in Munich, Volksbühne in Berlin, and Museo Anahuacalli in Mexico City (as part
of MUTEK festival). The emotive images that the Berlin-based artist previously summoned in themind’s eye assumed a more tangible, multi-sensory form. Alongside visual artist Ruben Spiniand lighting designer and scenographer Marcel Weber, digital projection, fabric, and fog weremeticulously arranged to create an event of “mythological” proportions, one in which Barbieriand her iridescent music appeared to exist at the threshold of a new dawn.
In 2023, Barbieri turned her attention to Myuthafoo, a suite of compositions recorded at thesame time as Ecstatic Computation and using the same creative sequencing processes for hermodular synthesiser. The composer regards it as a “sister album” with Resident Advisor callingthe album an “enormous, intimidating, completely enveloping work.” Like Spirit Exit and areissue of Ecstatic Computation, it was released on Barbieri’s light-years label, not only a homefor her own music but a platform for kindred, avant-garde spirits, including saxophonist BendikGiske, techno producer Nkisi, and avant-pop artist Lyra Pramuk.
Just as Barbieri keeps a diverse group of collaborators, her music exists amid many differentlineages. It is in conversation with twentieth-century composers such as Éliane Radigue,Pauline Oliveros, and Laurie Spiegel, women who pushed electronic music into deeplypsychological and psychedelic spaces. So too has it won support from cutting-edge musicians like Aphex Twin, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Björk. Like those artists, Barbieri creates her ownsonic universe, audible in each infinitesimal synth blip to crescendo of resplendent cosmic awe,her music having the effect of almost sling-shotting the listener through space itself.
Barbieri’s work is ultimately rooted by her own philosophy, what she describes as “radicalimmanence.” This refers to sound hitting the ear, getting transduced into electrical impulses, andthe listener vibrating with the air around them — thus connecting with their immediate environment in hitherto unexpected ways. She says it is also a means of uniting the “physical world with the metaphysical, the material and immaterial.” With every polyrhythmic pulse and euphoria-inducing trance sequence, the idea becomes clearer, simultaneously anchoring the listener in a single moment while awakening in them the sprawling expanse of time."
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
859 O'Farrell St. San Francisco CA 94109, 859 O'Farrell St, San Francisco, CA 94109-7005, United States,San Francisco, California
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