Caterina Barbieri

& Bendik Giske release debut collab EP

Music

The renowned Italian composer and Venice Music Biennale director Caterina Barbieri – the festival’s youngest ever – has collaborated with the Berlin-based Norwegian saxophonist Bendik Giske on a new EP.

Described as an “intimate, cosmic” work rooted in deconstructive techniques and titled ‘At Source‘, the EP grew out of their first time witnessing each other perform in 2019, as well as Giske’s rework of Barbieri’s track ‘Fantas‘ for the 2021 Mego release ‘Fantas Variations‘.

Their work for the EP subsequently began at the ICA Milan in 2021, during a residency they were both invited to by Swiss artist and curator Jan Vorisek. Giske then joined Barbieri’s light-years tour, which functioned as the seed for Barbieri’s eponymous label (now home to releases by the likes of Grand River, Abul Mogard, and Marta De Pascalis).

After developing the material live, the duo recorded an EP that, according to Barbieri “explores the liminality between the machine and the human, and the vulnerability in this process” in a “a meeting which was spontaneous, graceful and natural“.

A remarkable collaboration, the EP brings together stately synths and spiralling sax tones in a meditative, transcendent soundworld. ‘Impatience, Magma‘ and ‘Persistence, Buds‘ are particular highlights in our book; music to get truly lost in.

‘At Source‘ is out now on light-years. Listen to ‘Persistence, Buds‘ and check out the artwork and tracklisting below.

<a href="https://caterinabarbieri.bandcamp.com/album/at-source">At Source by caterina barbieri</a>