Name: Fantas Variations
Brand: Caterina Barbieri

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

EMEGO 279LP

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Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2021-08-13

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Forced Exposure

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

5050580757493

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Total Cap

2 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

Artist

Caterina Barbieri

Genre US

Electronic

Label US

Editions Mego

Caterina Barbieri is an Italian composer and musician hailing from Bologna. With a background in analog and digital synthesis, she has established herself as a prominent figure in the field of minimalism. Formerly residing in Berlin, Caterina now calls Milan her home base for creating mesmerizing musical compositions.
Driven by her passion for exploring the possibilities of sound, Caterina combines both traditional and contemporary techniques to craft unique sonic landscapes that captivate listeners. Her innovative approach to music production has garnered critical acclaim and earned her a dedicated following within the electronic music community.
With each composition, Caterina invites audiences on a transformative journey through intricate patterns and evolving textures. Her mastery of synthesizers allows her to create immersive auditory experiences that push boundaries and challenge conventional notions of what music can be.

"Fantas" is the epic opening track on Caterina Barbieri's acclaimed 2019 release Ecstatic Computation. The original "Fantas" laid out a magical path of patterns leading the listener on a journey into the sound itself. Fantas Variations maps out eight new potentials sprung from this initial path as constructed by a diverse mix of artists lending to a wide spectrum of new works extrapolated from the original work. For this project Barbieri invited friends and long-time collaborators from a variety of musical backgrounds to create a more sustainable and inclusive landscape in terms of stylistic, geographical, gender, and generational balance. The results are a diverse array of approaches and instrumentation which blur the boundaries between the acoustic and electronic. Fantas Variations embraces a platform for mutual exchange and support between like-minded artists, where active and collective re-imagination is prioritized over the traditional model of remixes, which is often strategic, functional and more passive.

Longtime friend and collaborator Kali Malone rearranged "Fantas" to a slowed-down, austere and eerie version for two organs. Evelyn Saylor created a piece for a vocal ensemble consisting of her, Lyra Pramuk, Stine Janvin, and Annie Garlid, joining forces to express the choral, psychedelic and vital nature of the piece. Barbieri's former guitar professor at the Conservatory in Bologna, Walter Zanetti, composes "Fantas" for electric guitar, by translating every single gesture of the original electronic piece into a personal, nuanced and detailed interpretation. Bendik Giske's reinterpretation for saxophone and voice captures the atmospheric essence of "Fantas" and its psychic meteorology. Longtime collaborator and along with Barbieri the other half of the outfit Punctum, Carlo Maria, resynthesizes "Fantas" for TR808 and MC202, bringing a more club-oriented dimension of the piece to life whilst unveiling the sonic continuum between rhythm and pitch through a sensitive timbral approach. Jay Mitta's Singeli reinterpretation of "Fantas" transpires with pitched-up percussion and turbo-fast polyrhythmic patterns unleashing the frenetic, shifting, transformative matter within the piece to a higher plain of euphoric dance. Baseck's variation is a rave fantasia, where the prismatic trance of the original is channeled into fierce, uncompromising hardcore, whilst Kara-Lis Coverdale's take is a phantasmagoria for piano that gently, yet inexorably, captures the relentlessness chimerical qualities of the original, unveiling its spectral backbone. 

Mastered by Rashad Becker, February 2021. Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle, Berlin, February 2021. Artwork and typography by Ruben Spini. Lettering by Alice Fiorelli.

Fantas Variations

Music US