Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Interview: minimalist electronic artist Caterina Barbieri

01/08/2017

We talk about her introduction to synthesis and avoiding iconic synth timbres

Place / Event > Concert, Conference

With the final programme for Loop - Ableton's music summit - being announced, we took the opportunity to catch up with one of the artists on the roster. We talk to Berlin-based Italian minimalist electronic artist, Caterina Barbieri whose 2017 record Patterns of Consciousness has received critical acclaim and even been named in several Best of 2017' music round-ups.

Having started her musical career with the study of classical guitar at the Conservatory in Bologna, Barbieri was first introduced to electronic music through noise and metal concerts in her teens. Following high school, she began a programme in Electronic Music, but it was her encounter with the Buchla 200 system during her studies at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm, in 2013 that really set her down the path of electronic composition. The Buchla taught me a way of listening to sound that years of training in classical music never taught me. Suddenly I started hearing all this subatomic dance of particles wrapped in a waveform. And that's how all started. says Barbieri.

Paths Less Trodden

Patterns of Consciousness is an original work that doesn't recycle the sonics of its forebears to connect with its audience. This is immediately apparent when you listen to the first track, and according to Barbieri, this was a very deliberate move. In general I try to avoid iconic timbres from legendary synthesisers that are immediately recognisable and deeply embedded in our music culture. I use simple waveforms because I want to minimize the extra-musical, extrinsic cultural references of my sound and keep the identification of the sound source blurred. When the listener fails to grasp the source behind a sound, she/he engages with a more active listening attitude, reliant on the intrinsic properties of sound as a physical object rather than the extrinsic properties of sound as a cultural object. In this way I find the perception of the sound object itself is enhanced and refreshed.

It's this approach, perhaps, that heightens the emotional impact of the 70-minute opus as, by Barbieri's own admission, it's not by design. Actually I have no clear idea of the emotional intention with a composition before I begin to compose. I've noticed I have a natural attraction for certain combinations of notes, like a melodic and harmonic taste that always comes back when I start writing something. But I think that the emotional aspect of my music is actually the less intentional one.

Shaping The Musical Brain

The synthesizer has clearly shaped Caterina's compositional approach, as she explains: I think that in first place the practice on synthesisers helped me developing an attentive and active listening attitude towards the microscopic properties of sound. And that's because synthesisers offer the possibility to shape timbre on a microscopic level and actively experience acoustic and psychoacoustic phenomena in first person. You can study FM modulation in a book but experiencing it and being able to control it with your hands it's way different. It's like learning a new language. You cannot just read sentences on a book and expect to learn them. The brain will hold new sentences only once you have actively used them a reasonable number of times. And the same goes for audio concepts. I feel that not only the mind but also the body has to process them to grasp them in high resolution.

After a certain exposure to a stream of sound you can actively interact with, you gain a better understanding not only of the sound in itself but also of its effects on you and therefore of your own mechanisms of perception. And that's pretty amazing! Probably the most valuable experience that the practice on synthesisers brought into my compositional process.

The stream of sound is another interesting aspect of analog synthesisers. Synths are fields of continuous electricity. Sound flows constantly. You don't press a button to play or stop a musical process. The idea of composing from silence by means of an additive design as well as the start/stop logic related to the digital practice are undermined. You tune yourself to an ongoing sound field and make it selective. Eventually, the music is already there even before you start. In this perspective, composition becomes an act of subtraction rather than a demiurgic act of creation from scratch. This shifts the attention from the object and subject of perception to the field where the perception is occurring, a non-specific viewpoint .

And this is very much what I was looking for when I bought my Verbos Harmonic Oscillator, which is the only sound source of my last work Patterns of Consciousness (Important Records, 2017). I wanted to start from the full spectrum of a sound and then being able to filter it into its partials and derive melodic information from its harmonic sound continuum.

Audio titled Caterina Barbieri - Patterns Of Consciousness - Album excerpts - 2LP April1 2017 by importantrecords

Another module that really shaped my musical brain is the Indexed Quad Sequencer ER-101 from Orthogonal Devices. I bought it because I wanted to work with massive pattern generation and this module allows to write super long patterns and work with different Math Operations (Arithmetic, Geometric, Random, Jitter) to expand and develop patterns. It's the brain of my setup and it's the perfect device to bring structure and repeatability inside the chaotic environments that modular synthesis is (in)famous for. I wanted to explore the power of sound repetition and its psycho-physical effects, and the powerful sequencing capabilities of the ER-101 turned out to be a big source of inspiration in this sense.

Through this module I
LINK: http://www.soundonsound.com/news/interview-minimalist-electronic-artis...
See more stories from soundonsound

Most recent headlines

04/09/2025

Monumental Sports & Entertainment and Dalet Win Prestigious 2025 NAB Show Project of the Year Award

Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...

28/04/2025

New in Premiere Pro and After Effects at NAB 2025 - Larry Jordan with Kylee Pea of Adobe

New in Premiere Pro and After Effects at NAB 2025 - Larry Jordan with Kylee Pe a...

28/04/2025

The Text Selector Expression is arguably the most elusive Adobe After Effects Feature and yet it's its most powerful Text Feature

The Text Selector Expression is arguably the most elusive Adobe After Effects Fe...

28/04/2025

Master your music for free with a new desktop app from Brainworx

Master your music for free with a new desktop app from Brainworx Brie Clayton April 27, 2025 0 Comments bx_mastering studio promises free streaming-re...

27/04/2025

A Tribute to Bruce Logan, Written By Steve Weiss

It's with deep regret that we share the passing of our dear friend Bruce Logan, ASC. Bruce was not just a collaborator-he was family. He worked with us at ...

26/04/2025

Samsung Ads Launches New Interactive Ad Format

NEW YORK Samsung Ads has debuted a new interactive advertising format, Creative Canvas, that helps automate and deliver interactive ads....

26/04/2025

Sinclair Names Vincent J. Sollecito VP/GM of WPEC

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. Sinclair has appointed Vincent J. Sollecito vice president and general manager of WPEC, serving the West Palm Beach, Florida market....

26/04/2025

Comcast Technology Solutions, AD-ID Join Forces to Advance Ad Standards

NEW YORK and DENVER AD-ID and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) have announced that they are working together to promote the adoption of industry standards in ...

26/04/2025

Cobalt Scores a Trifecta of Awards at NAB 2025

Cobalt Scores a Trifecta of Awards at NAB 2025 Brie Clayton April 25, 2025 0 Comments Company adds another Best of Show and two Product of the Year tr...

26/04/2025

FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2025 entries

FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2025 entries Brie Clayton April 25, 2025 0 Comments Entries open from 1 May 31 July to colourists on any grading pl...

26/04/2025

Blackmagic's Latest Products - Larry Jordan Guest Spots with Dan May at NAB Las Vegas 2025

Blackmagic's Latest Products - Larry Jordan Guest Spots with Dan May at NAB ...

25/04/2025

The Legend of Ochi Takes Families on an Adventure

Emily Watson, Isaiah Saxon, Helena Zengel, and Finn Wolfhard at The Legend of Ochi premiere (photo by Soul Brother/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)...

25/04/2025

Interoperability and Networked Electronic Warfare: Critical for the Modern Warfighter

Using its CORVUS portfolio, L3Harris created a highly adaptable battle network t...

25/04/2025

Agile Content and Tiscali team up to launch the tv service Linkem My TI-VI in Italy Agile TV

Agile Content joins forces with Tiscali to introduce a new platform in Italy, of...

25/04/2025

Agile Content is Now AgileTV Agile TV

The company positions Agile TV as the commercial brand focused on delivering TVaaS solutions for operators and media. The chosen tagline TVaaS your way enca...

25/04/2025

Agile TV, United Teleports, and BNS Launch a More Profitable, Hassle-Free TV Service Agile TV

A Fully Managed Solution That Maximizes Revenue for North American Operators Whi...

25/04/2025

Former Morgan Murphy Media CEO Elizabeth Murphy Burns Has Died

Morgan Murphy Media has issued the following obituary for its former CEO:...

25/04/2025

FEMA Lifts Its Hold on Warning System Grants

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has lifted its hold on grant money for some public broadcast stations to upgrade their infrastructure....

25/04/2025

Enhance Videos 80% Faster & Fix Format Issues with VideoProc - Major Update

Enhance Videos 80% Faster & Fix Format Issues with VideoProc - Major Update Brie Clayton April 25, 2025 0 Comments VideoProc Converter AI just got a m...

25/04/2025

Listen to Kim Perlak and Francisco Mela's New Album, Recorded in a Single Afternoon

Listen to Kim Perlak and Francisco Mela's New Album, Recorded in a Single Af...

25/04/2025

YouTube Turns 20, Celebrates 20 Trillion Uploaded Videos

YouTube is celebrating its 20th birthday with stats showing how popular the platform has become and by announcing some new features, including the ability for u...

25/04/2025

Sinclair's Dave Schwartz, Corporate SVP/Station Operations, to Retire

BALTIMORE Sinclair, Inc. has announced the retirement of Dave Schwartz, its corporate senior vice president/station operations, effective June 30....

25/04/2025

SBE Releases Updated CertPreview Practice Exams

The Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) has released its popular CertPreview practice exams in a new, online format. SBE CertPreview allows people preparing to...

25/04/2025

Dallas Wings Expand OTA Reach with Tegna, Gray and Corridor Deals

ARLINGTON, Texas Two months after naming Tegna station KFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth its exclusive local broadcast partner for WNBA games, the Dallas Wings are expa...

25/04/2025

AMG's Local Now Launches on Vizio's WatchFree+

LOS ANGELES, Calif. Allen Media Group has announced that all 223 U.S. Markets covered by its Local Now FAST Channel are now available on the Vizio WatchFree+ st...

25/04/2025

Working with Shutterstock's AI Editor to Create Unique Images

Working with Shutterstock's AI Editor to Create Unique Images Brie Clayton April 25, 2025 0 Comments What's better than a stock image source? ...

25/04/2025

VEON Files its 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F

25 Apr 2025 VEON Files its 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F Dubai, April 25, 2025: VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq: VEON), a global digital operator ( VEON' or the Compa...

25/04/2025

Super Bowl Streaming Success: A Conversation with Tubi's Chief Product & Technology Officer Mike Bidgoli

Super Bowl Streaming Success: A Conversation with Tubi's Chief Product & Tec...

25/04/2025

Tariff Turmoil: Trump's Trade Policy Sparks Uncertainty at NAB and Increases Focus on Software Adoption

Tariff Turmoil: Trump's Trade Policy Sparks Uncertainty at NAB and Increases...

25/04/2025

High Kicks and High Stakes: Sky Arts announces new series, The Battle of the Irish Dancers

Friday 25 April 2025 Hot on the heels of the Irish Dancing World Championships ...

25/04/2025

Netflix Announces Release Date and First Look of 'The Thursday Murder Club'

Back to All News Netflix Announces Release Date and First Look of The Thursday ...

25/04/2025

FOR-A Showcases Next-Generation Broadcast Solutions at CABSAT 2025

Connecting the present, building the future FOR-A IMPULSE HVS-Q12 FOR-A MixBoard...

25/04/2025

dB at MPTS 2025

Following last year's successful event, we're back at the Media Production and Technology Show (MPTS) in London this year. As before, we're looking ...

25/04/2025

Thales and Deloitte form Strategic Alliance to Help Enhance Data Protection and Governance Services

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Enhancing Data Protection and Governance Service...

24/04/2025

Film Festival Watch: Catch These 13 Sundance Institute-Supported Films at the 2025 Hot Docs Festival

We're huge fans of shining a spotlight on the documentaries that empower, en...

24/04/2025

Spotify Expands AI Playlist in Beta to Premium Listeners in 40+ New Markets

Playlists have always been at the heart of the Spotify experience. Since AI Playlist in beta launched last year, Premium users have used it to create millions o...

24/04/2025

How Latin Artists Are Thriving Both at Music Festivals and on Spotify

From the California desert and Chicago's Grant Park to New York City's Flushing Meadows Corona Park and beyond, music festivals this spring and summer w...

24/04/2025

82 Artists, 10 Countries, Limitless Sounds: Meet the RADAR Asia Class of 2025

The sounds of Asia are as diverse and vibrant as the continent itself. From the lively beats of Indonesian pop to the gritty rhymes of Pinoy hip-hop, the region...

24/04/2025

L3Harris Technologies Reports First Quarter 2025 Results, Updates 2025 Guidance

Highlights* Revenue of $5.1 billion Operating margin of 10.2%; Adjusted segment operating margin of 15.6% Diluted EPS of $2.04; Non-GAAP diluted EPS of $2.4...

24/04/2025

L3Harris Harnesses Commercial Model to Deliver Capability to Warfighters with Speed and Agility

For more than 50 years, the company's commercial approach to delivering resi...

24/04/2025

Ateliere Acquires Agile Live Software

Century City, Calif. and Bilbao, Spain (July 8, 2024) - Ateliere Creative Technologies, a leading GenAI media software solutions company, and Agile Content, a l...

24/04/2025

AgileTV Showcases TVaaS at IBC 2024

Agile Content to Showcase Industry-Leading TV-as-a-Service Platform at IBC 2024 Bilbao, September 4th - Agile Content, a leading provider of Internet televisio...

24/04/2025

AgileTV & Netorium Boost TVaaS in DACH

Boosting TVaaS in the German-speaking countries with expert integration and 24/7 local support Bilbao/Wiesbaden, September 5th 2024 Agile Content and netorium...

24/04/2025

AgileTV & GlobalDots Revolutionize CDN

New partnership between Agile Content and GlobalDots promises to introduce automated multi-CDN solutions, optimizing content delivery and easing provider manage...

24/04/2025

AgileTV & Agama Boost Streaming at Telenor

Empowering operators with real-time content delivery optimization, improved video quality, and reliable end-to-end service visibility Amsterdam, Netherlands, S...

24/04/2025

Agile Content and Convergenze partner to launch Convergenze TV in Italy Agile TV

Agile Content joins forces with Convergenze to introduce a new platform in Italy, offering a wide range of premium content for all audiences. Bilbao, September...

24/04/2025

AgileTV Earns Bronze EcoVadis Rating

Bilbao, October 10th 2024 - Agile Content, a global provider of PayTV end-to-end solutions, has received the Bronze EcoVadis Sustainability Rating. This ranking...

24/04/2025

MASORANGE & AgileTV Renew Deal

Through this agreement, MASORANGE will incorporate new AGILE CONTENT technologies into its television service, enhancing customer experience with optimum servic...

24/04/2025

AgileTV Reports Q3 Growth

The company reports positive results in the third quarter, despite ending the first half of 2024 with an 8.8% decline in revenue and an 18.3% drop in EBITDA com...

24/04/2025

AgileTV & Tiscali Launch Linkem My TI-VI

Agile Content joins forces with Tiscali to introduce a new platform in Italy, offering a wide range of premium content for all audiences. Bilbao, November 26,...