The musical vortexes of Caterina Barbieri rewire time and space. Listening to the Italian composer and modular synth artist has felt like traveling at light-speed and slow-motion all at once since 2017’s breakthrough double-album Patterns Of Consciousness. 2019’s Ecstatic Computation pushed even further with the lead single “Fantas”, where a haunting melody hurtling towards its supernova climax felt like witnessing the life and death of a burning star. Far beyond any new age trope or modern synth trend, her music stands alone in its ecstatic intensity and cataclysmic emotional impact.
For an artist who's best known for peering into the far future on her critically lauded album on legendary label Editions Mego Ecstatic Computation, Barbieri has long maintained a dynamic relationship with history. The Italian composer has spent the best part of a decade breaking apart the rigid structures of electronic music, using advanced, idiosyncratic techniques to build bridges between experimental, dance and pop landscapes.
Her music is rooted in the relationship between technology and its impact on the creative process, and her use of modular synthesizers doesn't simply aestheticize the machinery, it examines its consequences on human perception and the psychedelic potential of complex generative sequencing techniques. Pitchfork has described her music as “a mind-altering journey” and “a dreammachine for the ears”.
On her 2014 debut release Vertical she used the Buchla system alongside her own voice to marry two vastly different sonic eras and by 2022's Spirit Exit, released on her own light-years imprint, Barbieri had broadened the concept into widescreen.
Described by NPR as “deeply psychedelic and, by extension, subversive,” Spirit Exit expanded the knotty synthesiser music of previous releases to incorporate a bigger universe of sounds while emphasising the potent dualities that lie at the heart of her compositions: monumental and intimate, pristine and dense, unerringly futuristic yet capable of summoning a deep primeval energy.
However, Barbieri’s probing electronics have never been contained by the album format. Her practice, informed by an education in classical guitar and electro-acoustic composition at the Conservatory of Bologna, the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and its 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.”
In just a few short years Barbieri has played a slew of the world's most important music festivals, from Unsound and Atonal to Primavera Sound and Sonar, and has presented her work at prestigious venues including London's Barbican Centre, Biennale di Venezia, Haus Der Kunst in Münich, Berlin’s Volksbühne, Mexico City’s Museo Anahuacalli, Ruhrtriennale, Philarmonie de Paris and Festival de Cannes, among many others.
2022’s Spirit Exit full artistic vision was realised across a series of ambitious live performances in collaboration with visual artist Ruben Spini and lighting designer and scenographer Marcel Weber, where digital projection, fabric, and fog are meticulously arranged to create an immersive journey, one in which Barbieri and 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 the same time as Ecstatic Computation and using the same creative sequencing processes, that tease an ecosystem where technology and biology are intertwined, and the past, present, and future are part of the same essential narrative. Regarded as a sister album, it was released on Barbieri’s light-years label, not only a home for her own music but a platform for kindred, avant-garde spirits, including saxophonist Bendik Giske, techno producer Nkisi, and avant-pop artist Lyra Pramuk.
Barbieri’s work is ultimately rooted by her own philosophy, what she describes as “radical immanence.” This refers to sound hitting the ear, getting transduced into electrical impulses, and the 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 listener is able to simply feel this idea through the sound waves that course through their own body. They are anchored in a single moment while traversing what feels like the sprawling expanse of time, all while Barbieri’s blinding, resplendent synth music swirls around them in a crescendo of cosmic awe.
READ "TERRA INCOGNITA: A CONVERSATION WITH CATERINA BARBIERI"
For an artist who's best known for peering into the far future on her critically lauded album on legendary label Editions Mego Ecstatic Computation, Barbieri has long maintained a dynamic relationship with history. The Italian composer has spent the best part of a decade breaking apart the rigid structures of electronic music, using advanced, idiosyncratic techniques to build bridges between experimental, dance and pop landscapes.
Her music is rooted in the relationship between technology and its impact on the creative process, and her use of modular synthesizers doesn't simply aestheticize the machinery, it examines its consequences on human perception and the psychedelic potential of complex generative sequencing techniques. Pitchfork has described her music as “a mind-altering journey” and “a dreammachine for the ears”.
On her 2014 debut release Vertical she used the Buchla system alongside her own voice to marry two vastly different sonic eras and by 2022's Spirit Exit, released on her own light-years imprint, Barbieri had broadened the concept into widescreen.
Described by NPR as “deeply psychedelic and, by extension, subversive,” Spirit Exit expanded the knotty synthesiser music of previous releases to incorporate a bigger universe of sounds while emphasising the potent dualities that lie at the heart of her compositions: monumental and intimate, pristine and dense, unerringly futuristic yet capable of summoning a deep primeval energy.
However, Barbieri’s probing electronics have never been contained by the album format. Her practice, informed by an education in classical guitar and electro-acoustic composition at the Conservatory of Bologna, the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and its 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.”
In just a few short years Barbieri has played a slew of the world's most important music festivals, from Unsound and Atonal to Primavera Sound and Sonar, and has presented her work at prestigious venues including London's Barbican Centre, Biennale di Venezia, Haus Der Kunst in Münich, Berlin’s Volksbühne, Mexico City’s Museo Anahuacalli, Ruhrtriennale, Philarmonie de Paris and Festival de Cannes, among many others.
2022’s Spirit Exit full artistic vision was realised across a series of ambitious live performances in collaboration with visual artist Ruben Spini and lighting designer and scenographer Marcel Weber, where digital projection, fabric, and fog are meticulously arranged to create an immersive journey, one in which Barbieri and 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 the same time as Ecstatic Computation and using the same creative sequencing processes, that tease an ecosystem where technology and biology are intertwined, and the past, present, and future are part of the same essential narrative. Regarded as a sister album, it was released on Barbieri’s light-years label, not only a home for her own music but a platform for kindred, avant-garde spirits, including saxophonist Bendik Giske, techno producer Nkisi, and avant-pop artist Lyra Pramuk.
Barbieri’s work is ultimately rooted by her own philosophy, what she describes as “radical immanence.” This refers to sound hitting the ear, getting transduced into electrical impulses, and the 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 listener is able to simply feel this idea through the sound waves that course through their own body. They are anchored in a single moment while traversing what feels like the sprawling expanse of time, all while Barbieri’s blinding, resplendent synth music swirls around them in a crescendo of cosmic awe.
READ "TERRA INCOGNITA: A CONVERSATION WITH CATERINA BARBIERI"
Photography by Furman Ahmed
