Voices #49
◦ “voices” is the place where we ask, artists reply and you read.
here we got:
subespai
answering some questions. We have already observed his experimental / drone / noise / field recordings work here.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: Can you tell us how the track “St. Lawrence” came to light?
► subespai: After nine years living in Australia, my family and I relocated back to Spain. That transition was intense and all-consuming, and for a while I completely stopped making music. I only returned to it once we had settled in our current hometown, Alaior, in the Balearic Islands.
Spain has a strong tradition of music tied to place and ritual, and Alaior is no exception. In the summer of 2024, my wife recorded a short snippet of the traditional tune that opens the festivities of Saint Lawrence, the town’s patron saint. When I listened to it, it stayed with me. It felt unresolved, almost insistent, like the beginning of something. I started working with the recording in my usual way: manipulating it, layering it, letting it drift away from its original function and turn into a journey of its own.
At the time I was also developing a live set that never quite came together. I was stuck with it, hitting a wall creatively. “St. Lawrence” completely took over that process, although some of the DNA of that abandoned live set remained. The result was an almost 30-minute piece. Longform works are natural territory for me. They allow time for things to breathe, for slow transformations to happen. In a way, they are also a quiet statement against the speed and constant dopamine-chasing that dominates how we consume culture today.
Once the piece was composed and rehearsed, I recorded it properly at Es Molí Estudis, a local studio run by a friend from town. After that, I pitched the idea to Mike from Oxtail Recordings: a two-track cassette release, with another longform piece on the B-side. Mike immediately connected with the idea, for which I am deeply grateful, and that’s how Saints came into existence.
[2. CREATION]
(more…)