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EOTRAX PROMO
Hara Alonso - 'Somatic Suspension' [ETXLP003]
Artist: Hara Alonso
Title: Somatic Suspension
CAT#: ETXLP003
Release date: March 5th, 2021
Format: Cassette & digital
Distributed by: Rubadub
Pre-order: Bandcamp
A1 Desnuda
A2 The Centre of the Sun is Empty
A3 Reversed Rain
A4 40 Days of Silence
B1 Habit or Shock, Resonance or Impact
B2 Horizontal Disintegration
B3 The Work of Poetry
B4 Le Memoria del Futuro
SOMATIC SUSPENSION
Somatic Suspension, the new album from Stockholm based Spanish composer and pianist Hara Alonso, is an intimate project developed out of a period of introspection and inward listening. The outcome is an unclassifiable music, its aesthetic limits dissolved in a genre-free meditative experiment.
Emerging from a contemporary classical background, Hara’s current work fuses electronic and instrumental music along with interactive works. 'Somatic Suspension’ was developed through last year's pandemic, both in the EMS studios in Stockholm and in the solitude of her apartment only broken by walks in a nearby forest. In her words: ’Playing piano was the only thing that connected me with myself.’
The piano used is a rare electroacoustic instrument, the Yamaha CP-70. It’s unique sound quality invoked the overall atmosphere of the album – sustained, like a winter forest covered by scattered golden leaves. The piano lines are an exercise in simplicity (a challenge for a pianist versed in dense contemporary music). A conscious choice to slow down and find the beauty in simplicity. At times only one note in each hand. The digital processes dissolve this pure sound into a superimposition of layers and glitches using a variety of feedback and filtering processes.
This work attempts to translate various somatic experiences into the sonic plane to access a more sensitive composition. The sonic matter is generated through the exploration of gestural repetition in a continuum biofeedback. Many of the sounds are 'mistakes' arrived at through improvising in a relaxed, almost meditative state. Together these intimate melodies and minimal electronics fuse to create an album of transcendent sound, a music both out of body and in the body that reverberates and echoes like the memory of an uncertain future.
Released on March 5th on white cassette & digital with artwork by Néstor Torrens and design by Goldmoth Media. Mastered by Dominic at Declared Sound.
File next to: Klara Lis Coverdale, Ryuchi Sakamoto, Alva Noto, Kelly Moran
HARA ALONSO
Hara Alonso is a Spanish pianist and composer based in Stockholm. Emerging from a classical contemporary background, in her current work electronic and instrumental music coexist along with interactive works.
Her music blends dance, electronica, and experimental aesthetics generating rich, complex and imaginative sonic universes. The piano is resignified as a sonic object able to range from microlyrical sequences to convoluted layers. Hara usually applies self-made software tools, modular synthesizers and own samples. She is an advocate of open source software where she finds the possibility to design limitless sound.
She has collaborated in many interdisciplinary projects throughout the years especially with dance, visuals and circus. She has developed a great interest in physicality and choreography that evolved into the use of body awareness as a method for her composition.
Her album debut, Pianoïse (2018, Keroxen label), was her first exploration around the merge of piano and electronics using live coding. Her second album Islas Sonoras (2019, CAAM- Sonoro), launched by CAAM-Sonoro was an atmospheric journey through field recordings and processed samples. In 2020 she collaborated with the electronic musician Moljebka Pvlse for his anniversary publication of Heaven’s Great Dome | Discourse on Deconstruction in the label Reverse Alignment.
Her work has been showcased at many international festivals including Sound of Stockholm (Sweden), Biennale de Musique en Scène (Lyon, France), S.T.R.E.A.M. Festival (Hamburg, Germany), Experimental Sound Gallery (San Petersburg, Russia), Prisma Festival (Panama) and Keroxen (Tenerife, Spain).
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