Costanza Francavilla - Nebulae in the Ibiza sky

We catch up with the Rome-born composer, now based in Ibiza, to talk about her “Children Of The Universe” and her long career as a musician and producer, touching on memories spent alongside Tricky, scoring acclaimed films, a special encounter with Owen Harris, the director of Black Mirror, her move to Ibiza, exotic influences, and her recent collaboration with Niccolò Fabi.

Women in electronic music, the kind dominated by modular synths: Delia Derbyshire, Suzanne Ciani, Eliane Radigue, Clara Rockmore, Pauline Oliveros, Wendy Carlos, Laurie Spiegel, but also Doris Norton, and the great Maddalena Fagandini. So: why, over all these decades, has there been so little recognition for composers who are so musically important, unlike (thankfully) in recent years?

First of all, thank you so much for mentioning these incredible women, who are a huge source of inspiration for me. I feel particularly close to Suzanne Ciani and to Eliane Radigue's whole journey, especially her turn toward Tibetan Buddhism and her sonic research into meditation and states of consciousness. The connection between women and electronics and technology has always existed – just think of Ada Lovelace, the godmother of computing. That said, I think there's more attention right now on the work of women composers and women in the technological/electronic field in general, because in recent years there's been a growing awareness worldwide around gender equality. It's been a long, hard road, but look at the attention and recognition being given to Hildur Guðnadóttir, the first woman composer to win an Oscar for Best Original Score. Absurd, right? Even though she comes from a scene that isn't exclusively electronic, Hildur has definitely opened an important door for the emancipation of women composers.

“Children Of The Universe” feeds on the same material as the German cosmic couriers. Stardust that becomes lifeblood for your compositions. Where does this need to project yourself into space – and consequently project your music into cosmic space – come from?

I've always believed in the transcendental experience of sound, in how frequencies can affect states of consciousness. And in how that can project us into a “cosmic,” otherworldly dimension. “Children Of The Universe” is a project born out of a film score for a movie about a journey to discover the Universe through the eyes of a group of children: composing for that film was a turning point for me, because for the first time I felt I was expressing my “cosmic” approach to sound through the use of electronics combined with meditation instruments. Since I've been living on the island of Ibiza, I've come into contact with artists who work in sound-meditation with crystal bowls, gongs and Tibetan bowls, and I started attending sound-therapy sessions. And little by little I began studying vibro-acoustic techniques and finding a connection between sound-meditation and electronic music. I find it fascinating to dig deeper into this research, this link between science, medicine, music and anthropology. I'm only at the beginning of this journey, and I'm excited to learn more every day. “Children Of The Universe” marks the start of that journey.

Who was the musician or band who influenced you most as a child, and why?

If I really have to pick just one, I'd say Johann Sebastian Bach. I think Bach has shaped my approach to composition over the years. His fugues moved me even as a child, when I played them while studying classical guitar at the Santa Cecilia conservatory. I remember spending hours, whole afternoons, studying his arpeggios. In particular, I remember the Fugue in A Minor BWV 997 and BWV 1001. The art of the fugue as an exploration of the contrapuntal possibilities offered by a simple theme. The repetition of notes, inversion, the process of rhythmic augmentation and diminution, deriving themes from the main theme, changing the rhythm, or introducing new themes. These are principles I find again, for instance, when I use arpeggiators in modular synthesis. Take Encoded Dreamers: compositions made over the course of a single night, a sonic journey from darkness into light, between dreamlike synthesizers, syncopated beats and streaks of cello."

When and how did this piece come about?

It came from a need for catharsis, between darkness and light... but also from a compositional necessity that had a “deadline.” Here's the story: last year Owen Harris, the director of Netflix's “Black Mirror,” came to my studio in Ibiza (ibizabloom.com) to edit the new episodes of the series. Owen was very keen on having me compose the original music for the series. And he asked me: “Why don't you put together a playlist of new tracks of yours for tomorrow? Intense mood, between light and darkness.” So I shut myself in the studio one night, immersing myself in this journey until dawn. I used some cello fragments I had composed (performed by the legendary Stefano Cabrera) and analog synths, in particular the MiniMoog and the Juno60, and when daylight came, I stopped. I closed the sessions and handed the tracks over to Owen. For various reasons, we weren't able to finalize the “Black Mirror” score, but the tracks represented a powerful emotional moment for me. So I decided to release them. The title is partly inspired by the series itself.

How does one of your compositions come to life? Is there a standard process, or do you “simply” follow the flow of your “essence,” of who you are in a given moment and a precise point in space?

Yes, I follow the flow. For me, composing isn't just a necessity tied to my professional career, it's truly a need that lets me approach states of contemplation. Especially when I use modular synths, I immerse myself in sound and dreamlike experimentation, almost always without recording anything. Sonic journeys that I often take alone at night, in my studio. In most cases, though, my compositions are tied to images, whether for film and documentary scores or for movie trailer music. So the “space” I often start from is the image, or the evocation suggested by an image. Usually, I start with a simple melodic layer, often played on a synth: I'm a lover of analog gear and improvisation, so MIDI isn't really my friend. From there I build up a few layers of sound, and then deconstruct them, assemble them, fit them together, layer them on top of each other. I studied Architecture, and my “constructive” method in composition definitely draws on architectural principles inspired by Mies van der Rohe's minimalism and his “Less Is More.” The foundations made of bass, and then rising up to the sky with high frequencies, “lighter” and airier. I'm not a fan of mid frequencies, of middling materials. I'm for stone, solid and secure, and then wide glass windows. That relationship of transparency with nature, which in music for me translates into ambient sounds, reverbs, delay, open spaces. I use few notes, few chords, few layers, few tracks. I look for the emotional arc of a track in the sculpting of sound, in the modulation of volumes and sustained notes, in the opening of filters, in the length of reverbs and echoes.

What were the key reference points you drew on to create the score for the documentary about William Friedkin, the cult director of “The Exorcist”? Did you rewatch the famous film as well?

I can tell you it was a very challenging job, both emotionally and compositionally: the subject in question is one of the pillars of film history, and the cast includes figures like Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola, Wes Anderson, Damien Chazelle, all artists I hold in great esteem. So, at first, I was pretty intimidated. I didn't rewatch the original “The Exorcist” film because I didn't want to be too influenced by Mike Oldfield's “Tubular Bells.” And also because, during the period I was working on the film, I was staying in the countryside in Ibiza, alone with my 4-year-old daughter, and as you can imagine, working at night with the images from that film while my daughter slept wasn't exactly reassuring. Anyway, when director Francesco Zippel contacted me to write the music, he already had a fairly precise idea of the score. He wanted me to bring my dreamy style to capture Friedkin's intimate side, with intense, dark undertones, to convey the darker side of his filmography. From “Sorcerer” to “The Exorcist,” from “French Connection” to “Cruising” (my favorite Friedkin film). The guiding references were inspired by the sonic world of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I used quite a few modular inserts, but above all a lot of analog synths from that era: from the Minimoog to the Prophet 5, all the way to the MS20 – instruments that also recur throughout Friedkin's films, just think of Tangerine Dream in “Sorcerer.” Bringing the film to the Venice Film Festival was a huge thrill, but even more so was getting to know the more intimate side of a director who, through this film, truly taught me a great deal about his art and about film history. Truly a great artist in every sense: long live Billy!

You often blend the physicality of electronics with the dreamlike bearing of classical music. Where does this specific need/blending of intentions come from?

As I mentioned, my musical path began with studying classical music as a child, and gradually I grew passionate about electronic music. These two worlds have always coexisted. So it feels natural to me that both show up in my tracks. And you put it well: electronics is physicality, is euphoria, while classical is ecstasy. Euphoria and ecstasy coexist: one in movement, the other in silence, in stillness. It's like a dance between soul and body.

Suzanne Ciani once said that in reality “a Buchla 200 is like a baby. It's essentially simple: you just need to know how to cradle it.” But is it really that hard to play? What's your relationship with this wonderful machine, and with other instruments similar to the Buchla?

I fully share the legendary Suzanne's thinking. Synths are creatures unto themselves. Robert Moog used to say: “I am 100% sure that synthesizers, even though they aren't living beings, have in a certain sense a consciousness that connects with us.” Actually, though, I don't use a Buchla system, even if I'd love to get my hands on an original 200. But I use Eurorack module systems, some of which share features with the Buchla, like the vactrols in Make Noise or Verbos modules. More than being difficult to play, modulars are a “trip” if you have knowledge of synthesis — oscillators, LFOs, envelopes, etc. — it actually ends up being fairly easy. Either way, it's a world completely unto itself. The sound isn't there. You're the one who creates it through control voltage. It's all a matter of electrical tension, of the ratio between Volts. It's unpredictable, so every time is an adventure. You might have an idea for a patch or a sound, but you never know where you'll end up. Everything can change, and the sound is never repeatable. I love it.

You've collaborated with a giant of trip-hop of the caliber of Tricky, who called you “the female version of me.” To me that comparison feels like a stretch. Listening to your music, I think yours is one of the most angelic bodies of work in contemporary progressive electronic music. And yet, there really is something genuinely close between you two. So what do you actually have in common with him? Is Tricky right, or am I overstating it? And what struck you most about him — and what least?

Tricky and I are bound by something very strong that's hard to explain. The first time we met, it was as if we'd known each other for a lifetime. Maybe it's our very instinctive approach to music, to the “first take.” The emotional side, even when it's off time, out of tune, off beat. But that ends up being the most visceral part. I remember the first time in the studio with him. I'd just arrived from Los Angeles straight from the airport. He put a microphone in front of me with a sheet of paper I'd written a few minutes earlier, with improvised lyrics he'd dictated to me. So I sang. We recorded it, and it was good on the first take. We kept that take on the record. Tricky's track “Hollow” has a spirit with plenty of dark sides, I imagine due to his difficult childhood. But he's one of the most sensitive people I've ever known. I remember evenings spent cooking, spent in silence listening to Kate Bush or the Cure, with him with tears in his eyes, moved by Robert Smith's lyrics. We didn't talk much to each other, but there was no need to talk. Our communication happened through music. Sometimes it was hard to deal with his prickly temperament, especially in public. So at a certain point I had to step away. Still, being by his side taught me a lot, and above all it gave me the chance to believe in myself and to believe that music could truly be a life path for me.

In Ibiza you set up the Ibiza Bloom Studio and the new label Silent Frequencies, devoted to experimental and ambient sounds. What's it like living in Ibiza year-round, and how much weight does a setting like Ibiza's — so steeped in that pastoral mood now lost in big cities like Rome — carry in your composing?

Yes, after years of city living between Rome, London, New York, Berlin and Los Angeles, in Ibiza I found my dimension. In the countryside, in touch with nature. I live a very quiet life here. Family life, with the kids, the animals. Ibiza is magical, especially in winter. Then in summer there's the tourist frenzy and I run away for a couple of months. My IbizaBloom studio was conceived to welcome artists who want to “detach” from frantic city life and immerse themselves in the creative process. A chance for a sonic retreat. Getting in touch with and collaborating with artists who come from all over the world with that intention is an enormous privilege for me. A great source of inspiration. Ibiza is home now. But it can also be a lifestyle not suited to everyone, being isolated from the “worldly world.” To take my daughter to school I have to drive 10 km of dirt road through the woods, and when it rains hard the power goes out and we're left without internet for days. Then in the evening there are real stars, and you can smell the sea, the changing of the seasons. Living here, my music has certainly taken on more and more of an ambient, contemplative, meditative bent. I'd find it hard to let myself drift toward urban sounds while living here. Playing at night under a clear sky, with the sound of the wind, everything feels more ethereal, stretched out in space and time.

“Free Men” is a documentary sponsored by Amnesty International about the incredible story of death-row inmate Kenneth Reams. You composed the music for it. So, what's it like making music for such terrible stories? Did you find it difficult, or did it all come easily and naturally?

I think I found a key to the film's music through one particular instrument: the hang, a metal hand-pan. It has a very melancholy sound, but it's a vibro-acoustic instrument that let me create a connection with Kenneth's story. As if his energy, his strength and his “vibration” could pass through the metal bars of his cell and set him free. It was a very emotional journey creating the music for the film, because Kenneth's is a story about the death penalty, but it's also a story of love, of hope, of resilience, of life. So the music had to hold life and death at once. Light and darkness. But without ever slipping into sentimentality. In any case, Kenneth changed my life. Every time I feel the sun on my skin I think of him, who, despite 25 years in solitary confinement as an innocent man, keeps fighting for freedom. All our little everyday problems become so trivial and so pointless compared to the battles he faces every day. It's been an honor for me to work on this film and to still be involved in running the “#FreeKennethReams” campaign. I hope the film can help raise awareness about his case, and that one day I can meet him as a free man.

Niccolò Fabi: tell us about this “strange” yet intense and very successful collaboration.

Niccolò called me one day asking to come work in my studio in Ibiza. He wanted to try out a new approach to writing his songs and move away from the acoustic setting of his previous album (una somma di piccole cose). He wanted to try starting from a more electronic world — but a rarefied, stretched-out electronic sound, not an electro-pop one. So he thought of me as a possible “channel” for that approach. He came to my studio at IbizaBloom. It was December. There was a very magical atmosphere in those days. The winter Ibiza that I love. Within a few days we “found each other,” meeting in a territory suspended between electronic music and singer-songwriter craft, with the tracks “Nel blu” and “Amori con le ali,” and the latter especially came together in a very magical, very spontaneous way. Him on guitar and me on the Juno60. Then he went back to Rome and continued the rest of the record with Roberto (Angelini) and other longtime collaborators of his, following the trail of what we'd experimented with in Ibiza, but, as he puts it, “taking the long way round the block” and still returning to more acoustic sounds closer to the song form he's known for. Still, those two tracks stayed just as we'd made them in Ibiza. I then handled some production “tweaks” and the string arrangement. Finally, almost at the close of the record, he called me again: they'd gotten a bit “stuck” on one track (“A prescindere da me”). And Niccolò asked me to come to Rome to try a new version. It was a kind of mission, because I only had one day, so it was a bit of a mad dash. When I got to the studio, I set up a tactical rig with some synths brought from Ibiza and my modulars. And Niccolò and Roberto played me the track. It was built around several guitar layers, but I suggested having it played on piano instead. So Niccolò sat down at the piano, and after two chord progressions I realized that was the key. Build the track around the piano melody. And so, with the addition of my synths and modulars, the final version of “A prescindere da me” was born too. Anyway, details aside, it was a lovely experience that brought me close to Italian song for the first time.

Kazuya Nagaya, Sarah Davachi, Leandro Fresco & Rafael Anton Irisarri, Grand River, A Winged Victory For The Sullen.

What did you bring to your performance at Mutek in Barcelona on February 21st? Any surprises to reveal to us?

At Mutek I brought my performance “Exploring Theta Waves.” As I was mentioning, since I moved to Ibiza (four years now), alongside my work composing for film and trailers, I've devoted myself a lot to ambient music, studying and experimenting with vibro-acoustic techniques and sound-meditation therapies combined with electronic music. The result of this sonic exploration is a live performance called, precisely, “Exploring Theta Waves”: a very intimate ambient live set that I perform with acoustic vibration instruments (like tibetan bowls, crystals, hand-pan), combined with modular synthesizers that guide the audience into a dreamlike state through the stimulation of Binaural Tones (binaural beats) at the frequencies of EEG Theta brainwaves — brainwaves commonly associated with deep relaxation, meditation, creativity and intuitive awareness. Binaural beats are beats perceived by the brain when two tones of slightly different frequency are heard separately (one tone in the left ear, the other in the right) through headphones. Several studies have shown that listening to these tones at slow frequencies (Theta Waves, between 4Hz and 8Hz) can induce brainwave entrainment and have a positive impact on our psychological wellbeing: deep relaxation, lower stress levels, clearer thinking, an enhanced creative mind. In my performance, the binaural beats (which I create using analog oscillators) are layered over very dreamy ambient soundscapes, a sort of “sound-journey.” The performance takes place with wireless headphones, and the audience is usually lying down, or at least sitting on the floor in a relaxed position. The atmosphere is very soft and dim, with only the lights of the headphones and candles. Very intimate. At Mutek it was lovely. I hope to be able to bring this performance to Italy again soon.

The synth you're most attached to.

The Minimoog Model D. It was my first analog synth and it opened up a world for me. And it's the MiniMoog.

What would you say to a young musician approaching modular synths? What advice would you give them?

First of all, to go back and brush up on the basics of synthesis - that can help a lot. And then to hang out on sites like ModularGrid and modular synth groups on Facebook. There's a huge community of modular heads online. We help each other out with advice, tips, feedback. It's like one big family (of lunatics, ahaha!).

I know you've collaborated, and still collaborate, with Marco Messina, who I know and admire. What's your relationship with him like, and when will you come play in Italy again - maybe in Messina's own Naples?

Marco is a "brother" to me, we really love each other. We met by chance on Myspace in the mid-2000s and started collaborating right away. He's come to my studio in New York many times. We've toured together, gone on sonic journeys across Africa. We've shared a lot, and we're very alike musically. He's the more visceral side, I'm the more ethereal one. His enthusiasm and talent have always inspired me. Marco isn't just the backbone of 99 Posse, he's also an incredible soundtrack composer. Just think of his score for "Martin Eden", which premiered in Venice. With him, I discovered another connection to soundtrack work, and how ambient and experimental music could fit into that world without necessarily having to compose for big orchestras. We've started several projects together and we're always trading modular synth "obsessions" with each other - I can't wait to get back in the studio with him. I love Naples and I hope to go back soon.

Plans for the future? What do you expect?

For the next few years? Ugh, that's a tough question. I'm getting married in September to the love of my life and father of my daughter. Family is always priority number one for me. Otherwise, I take it day by day in the present, and I hope to take a little step forward every day to improve myself and help make my surroundings better, moving toward a more sustainable, more harmonious world.

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