Bleep

A Sonic Womb presents a new piece of the same name from one of electronic musics great pioneers; the legendary Suzanne Ciani. This recording was made in late 2019 at an event in Barcelona which brought the curtain down on six years of fruitful collaboration between the city’s Centre For Contemporary Culture and the Lapsus Festival run by the record label of the same name.

The concert, which saw Ciani performing on a Buchla 200e synth, explored both the roots of Ciani’s own practise and the evolution of synthesiser music over the past few decades - an evolution which, of course, the Grammy-nominated Ciani has had a sizable hand in down the years. Across almost forty minutes here Ciani coaxes myriad tones and textures from her instrument. Bookended by two sections of whooshing atmospherics which bring to mind wind whipping across a desolate heath, Ciani builds outwards from an improvised motif which has been a core archetype of her work for decades.

Though it is all tied together by the warm tones of the Buchla, A Sonic Womb is a varied and vibrant work. The sections of melody and modulation could pass for the most ruminative work of Jean-Michel Jarre. Around the midpoint we are treated to electroacoustic abstractions which draw from Eliane Radigue, and from here A Sonic Womb scatters into a set of hardened rhythmic pulses which draw a line between Ciani’s decades of innovation and the recent output of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Caterina Barbieri.

Suzanne Ciani’s A Sonic Womb is a masterful piece of musical synthesis from one of the genres great pioneers, continuing to be a leader in her field.