L.E.V. Matadero 2022 · Plaza de Matadero, Madrid · 25 September 2022
The piece
L.E.V. Matadero is the Madrid edition of the L.E.V. festival, devoted to digital art and electronic music. Within its 2022 programme, Madrid Concrete by Clara Brea premiered at midday on 25 September in Plaza de Matadero. Free admission.
Madrid Concrete is a sound collage of the city built from field recordings made during her residency at the Matadero Centre for Artistic Residencies in 2021, after being selected in the third call for Women in Electronic Music.
The space
An urban concrete esplanade, open on all four sides, next to the brick halls of the old municipal slaughterhouse. No walls, no roof and no acoustic treatment of any kind.
The audience listened lying on canvas deckchairs spread across the square, facing the sky.
The challenges
Urban background noise. An open square in central Madrid has traffic, planes, roadworks and conversations. A loudspeaker system would have competed with all of that, and would have added its own sound level to the surroundings.
A piece made of city noise. Madrid Concrete is built from field recordings of Madrid. Playing it back in the middle of Madrid, with the real sound bleeding over the top, would have undone the work: there would be no telling the recording from what was happening around it.
Headphones solve both problems at once. They shut out the real noise and leave the listener alone with the city as rebuilt by the composer.
The listening
Each attendee was given a pair of headphones on arrival. Volume control is individual: the mix is the same for everyone and each person decides the level they hear it at.
As this was a public square and a thoroughfare, the activity imposed no sound level on anyone not taking part. Anyone crossing the esplanade saw a group of people lying down in silence.
Credits
Composition, mixing and mastering: Clara Brea
Field recordings: Clara Brea and Juan Peralta
Photography: Alejandro López Peña
The album Madrid Concrete was released on Bandcamp in October 2022.