Caterina Barbieri

Caterina Barbieri (Bologna, 1990) is an Italian composer and musician. Her defining trait is exploring the psycho-physical effects of sound, stimulating memory and perception, and probing the creative potential of computation through a minimalist language, seeking to reach states of alteration, ecstasy and temporal hallucination. Her style draws on hardware synthesizers and computers, through which she manipulates sound sources including her own voice and stringed instruments such as guitar, strings and harpsichord.

The typical instrumentation of Barbieri's compositions is characterized by the use of analog synthesizers, such as vintage Buchla modular systems and new-generation Eurorack systems, as well as digital synthesizers and the use of voice and stringed instruments (such as classical guitar, electric guitar, harpsichord and strings). Her compositional style is based on sequencing techniques, where the machine's intelligence plays a primary role in the creative process.

Far removed from contemporary new age trends, her music stands out for its ecstatic intensity and its catastrophic emotional impact.

Caterina Barbieri's musical vortexes rewire time and space. Listening to the Bologna-born composer is like experiencing a kind of journey at light speed and in slow motion all at once. A path that began with the groundbreaking double album "Patterns Of Consciousness" in 2017. The follow-up, "Ecstatic Computation" from 2019, pushed things even further, with the single "Fantas", on which it felt like witnessing the life and death of a star in flames.

Barbieri has spent much of this past decade breaking down the rigid structures of electronic music, using advanced and 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 goes beyond an aesthetic use of machinery, instead examining its consequences on human perception and its psychedelic potential through complex sequencing techniques. Pitchfork described her music as "a mind-altering journey".

On her 2014 debut, "Vertical", she used the Buchla system alongside her own voice to merge two very different sonic eras, and with 2022's "Spirit Exit" she expanded the concept even further. Described by NPR as "deeply psychedelic, and by extension, subversive", "Spirit Exit" enriched the complex synthesized music of her earlier releases to incorporate a wider universe of sounds, while emphasizing the powerful duality that defines her compositions: monumental and intimate, pristine and dense, futuristic yet capable of evoking a deep primordial energy.

Barbieri's experimental electronics, however, have never been confined to the "album format". Her work, honed through training in classical guitar and electroacoustic composition at the Conservatory of Bologna, the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, and its renowned center for sound art, Elektronmusikstudion, relies on live performance as a means of compositional development, letting each piece evolve in front of an audience and within a unique space, as if it were a "living organism".

In just a few years Barbieri has played at some of the world's most important music festivals, from Unsound and Atonal to Primavera Sound and Sonar, and has presented her work in prestigious venues including the Barbican Centre in London, the Venice Biennale, the Haus Der Kunst in Munich, the Volksbühne in Berlin, the Anahuacalli Museum in Mexico City, the Ruhrtriennale, the Philharmonie de Paris and the Cannes Film Festival.

The full artistic vision of 2022's "Spirit Exit" was unveiled through a series of ambitious live performances, in collaboration with visual artist Ruben Spini and lighting designer and set designer Marcel Weber, in which digital projection, electronic textures and smoke were meticulously arranged to create an immersive sonic journey.

In 2023, Barbieri turned her attention to "Myuthafoo", a suite of compositions recorded alongside "Ecstatic Computation" and using the same creative sequencing processes, conjuring an ecosystem in which technology and biology merge, and past, present and future are woven into a single narrative. Considered a sister album, it was released on Barbieri's own label, Light-years, not just a home for her own music but a genuine platform for like-minded, avant-garde spirits, including saxophonist Bendik Giske, techno producer Nkisi and avant-pop artist Lyra Pramuk.

Barbieri's work is ultimately rooted in her own philosophy, what she describes as "radical immanence". This refers to sound striking the ear and being translated into electrical impulses in such a way as to make the listener vibrate along with the surrounding air, thus connecting with the environment in unprecedented ways. In her own words, it is also a means of uniting "the physical world with the metaphysical, the material and the immaterial". Every polyrhythmic pulse and trance-inducing sequence brings on euphoria, allowing the listener to perceive this idea through the sound waves passing through their own body, all while Barbieri's music swirls around them, building to a crescendo of cosmic wonder.

(Source: caterinabarbieri.com)