| VENUE: | Casa de la Radio (Prado del Rey), Estudios de Radio Clásica / RTVE |
| RADIO STATION: | Radio Clásica |
| LINKS: | https://www.rtve.es/radio/radioclasica/ http://susannalopez.com https://susanloop.bandcamp.com https://twitter.com/SusanDronne https://www.instagram.com/susanndrone |
| STREAM: | https://www.rtve.es/radio/radio-clasica/directo/ (complete broadcast, from 19:00 to 23:00 UTC) |
“NachtMusik” (by Susana López aka Susan Drone)
Susana López uses hybrid methodologies, combining analogue and digital elements, using voices, field recordings, handmade instruments, synthesizers and drum machines. In her compositions and performances she processes all these different sound materials through the notions of exploration, repetition, distortion and duration. Her works allow the listener to enter into a form of trance, generating a mantra that makes it possible to reach other sensory experiences. The result is a ritualistic music that invites active listening.
“NachtMusik” introduces us to a dark, pulsating atmosphere that very gradually envelops the listener, creating an increasingly unstable and disturbing mass of sound. Its unstoppable evolution always develops in several layers, each of which presents a great autonomy. This dynamism provokes in the listener a continuous questioning of whether we are experiencing a paradigmatic example of “drone music”, or if these apparently static sounds have attained a vitality that transcends that stylistic demarcation, and rather invites us -simply but radically- to submerge ourselves in the flow of sound and to abandon ourselves through this listening experience.
We face, indeed, a “Nachtmusik”, that is to say, a “Night Music”, in which the echoes of a pulsating and constant rhythm (not far from a heartbeat), remind us that certain compositions can (and perhaps should) be considered as something strangely similar to a living being.
Susana López aka Susan Drone, based in Murcia (Spain), works with sound and light, exploring how these intangible materials can act as catalysts, focusing our consciousness and altering our perception. In her audiovisual performances she uses transformed field recordings, deconstructed drum machines, humanized synthesizers and synthesized voices. Sounds hidden behind immersive visuals of light and dark.
Her works embrace the hybridization of sound creation with other disciplines such as concerts, installations, performances or video art.
She has published six albums: “Chronicle of a kidnapping” (Elevator Bath, 2020), “Huldra” (Crystal Mine, 2020), “Looms” (Desert Woman, 2019), “Four Sinusoids to Eliane” (Important Drone Records, 2019), “Megalith-mania” (Desert Woman, 2014) and “Vortex” (Desert Woman, 2011). She has also contributed to international compilations such as “Pandemic Response Division”, “Spectral Electric” (Chicago); “From Here to Tranquility. Volume 11” (Silent Records, California) or “Artifariti, International Encounters of Art and Human Rights of Western Sahara”.
She has designed and produced sound art installations such as “Transforming Landscape III” (CAB de Burgos, 2019), “Transforming Landscapes II” (Murcia, 2019), “Transforming Landscapes” (Norway, 2018), “Noosfera Sonora” (2013, Murcia), “Pasos, homage to Christian Marclay” (Murcia, 2013), “Arquitecturas sonoras”, collective sound installation at CentroCentro (Madrid, 2014) and “Esto no es música para ascensores” (Murcia, 2012).
She has performed concerts at Réplika Teatro (Madrid, 2021), Festival IBAFF (Murcia, 2020), WOMEN AT PLAY. MUSIC FOR THE 21ST CENTURY (Murcia, 2019), LEM Festival (Barcelona, 2019), VOLUMENS III Festival (Valencia, 2019), METROLAB (Alicante, 2019), SONS CREATIVOS (Lugo, 2019), HØST PUNKT (Sien, Norway, 2018), AADK, Contemporary Practices (AADK, Murcia, 2018) and Experimenters at SONM phonotheque (Murcia, 2016).
Susana López also teaches workshops about Field Recordings, Soundscapes, Pioneers of Experimental Music and Sound Experimentation with children.
In her master’s thesis, “Politics of Noise. Noise as the definitive weapon” (“La Política del Ruido. El ruido como arma definitive”, 2013), she researched about the relationship between sound experimentation and ideological militancy. Afterwards she made 15 podcasts that sonically illustrated the texts of the publication: http://susannalopez.com/portfolio/la-politica-del-ruido/
Since 2013 Susana López develops the project “Artistas Sonoros Españoles” (“Spanish Sound Artists”), an online archive presenting the work of the sound artists who emerged in Spain from 1950 onwards.
– ART'S BIRTHDAY – 
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