Ingles

Gràcia, a european experimental soundscape
Theoretical Study

"A scene reminiscent of Impressions of Africa. At the head of the Passeig de Sant Joan,
the avenue terminates in an esplanade with a garden.
On that esplanade stands, slightly disproportionate & heavy with its great stone base
and the sculpted figure out of scale, the monument to Clavé.*
Behind the monument, on the other side of the garden and the potting shed,
is the white marble monument to Friar Pedro Ponce de León,
inventor of an oral teaching method for deaf-mutes.
This spot has long been considered a metaphysical nucleus by the musicians
belonging to the experimental production network La Línea.
After Russolo, music needed only the addition of silence.
That would come several decades later, discovered by John Cage."

(Julià Guillamon, Dos Monuments, an essay published in the exhibition catalogue of Alter Músiques Natives.
KRTU, the Cultural Department of the Generalitat de Catalunya, 1995).

In the last days of 1994 a large number of musicians and audio inventors founded the La Línea network, its name reflecting the perfect alignment of their experimental laboratories, which marks out a geographical segment of 1,377.0491803 meters running from northeast to southwest. This section of the Gràcia neighbourhood of Barcelona crosses the legendary Raspall square, the cradle of one of the few living folklores+the Gypsy rumba. A planetary centre with a powerful musical spirit, Gypsies were already reported present in the area on 11 June 1447. Several centuries later, the steam-operated spinning mills (the vapors) of the new textile industry finished determining the contemporary urban layout of the district.

Skipping ahead to the nineteen-seventies, the quarter was already a musical enclave par excellence and a good many musicians made their homes there. In the eighties the birth of what was known as post-industrial sound was experienced by Gràcia first hand, since this world-wide movement emerged during an era when many Europe and American artists were in residence.

By the early nineties the experimental labs of today's La Línea network were already in full operation, notably: the Lie/Doubt Area, the Laboratori de Música Desconeguda, the MultiSounds Mobile Unit, the Semàfor dels Desemparats and the RS Estudi. All the discs recorded and released by these labs bear the network logo+a symbol of their geographical alignment (five circles), as well as a tribute to the Raspall square as the sonic nucleus (the largest circle).
The logo looks something like this:

A great many experimental artists and groups have worked in these labs, both from Spain and abroad, among them: Alien Mar, Oriol Perucho, Superelvis, Macromassa, Tina Gil, Ràeo, Accidents Polipoètics, Ivo Naïf, Tres... (Barcelona); Mark Cunningham, Han Rowe, Katy O'Looney, Paul Hoskins, Chris Cochrane, Lydia Lunch, Zan Hoffman Sue-Ann Harkey...(the United States); Pascal Comelade, Cathy Claret, Pierre Bastien, Eric Blanchard... (France); Jim Thirwell (Australia); Jakob Draminsky Hojmark (Denmark); and Tim Hodgkinson, William Bennet, David Tibet and Andy Tavies (England), Hiroshi Kobayashi (Japan).
It may be fate that the John Lennon square lies within La Línea territory.

*Mr. Josep Anselm Clavé: Catalan musician and writer, born in 1824.
He created chorale music for choral groups of workers with even 1000 voices.
His compositions were impregnated with the Industrial Revolution spirit
and the sound of mechanical harms ans some other machines.
UP

As a contribution to Barcelona 2001, European Cultural Capital, during 1995 the L.M.D. (Laboratori de Música Desconeguda) Association carried out the first step in its project for the candidature: a database now referred to as the E.C.M.B. (Barcelona Musicians Communications Environment) to provide up-to-date information on the present situation of experimental performers and bands in Barcelona. Of the hundred or so who are involved in the fields of sound innovation and research in the city, a sample of 23 was selected for the survey. Although these artists released a total of 72 records (only 15 of which were edited outside Barcelona), the local audiovisual media virtually ignored them, with the notable exception of the independent station Radio P.I.C.A., which devoted 75% of its programming (24 hours a day) to the new music forms. To a lesser extent, Radio Contrabanda allotted them 15% of its airtime. No other local station either supported or broadcast this homegrown alternative music. In contrast, and rather paradoxically, Radio 3 in Madrid gave extensive media coverage to the Gràcia sonic phenomenon. As for television, neither TV2 nor TV3, nor Barcelona Television scheduled any regular time slots for experimental composers or performers, although the contemporary plastic arts and new-age video received considerable exposure. As for concerts, our sample performed in a total of 120, but the breakdown of this figure attests to an endemic problem. Of the 120 concerts, 50 were organised by independent groups (all in Barcelona), and the rest of them were distributed among the mainstream festivals in the region (Sónar, B.A.M., Musical Evenings at the Miró Foundation, the Mercat de Vic and the Altaveu de Sant Boi), leaving a tiny percentage of gigs in small or medium capacity venues. And here we are faced with a paradox: acoustical innovation, often closely linked to poetry and performance, requires small-format venues as the natural setting for its expression. But as a rule, the only chance for these innovators to play before a live audience is when they are incorporated into the line-up of mass festivals. These and other findings of the E.C.M.B. survey confirmed a situation that has prevailed in Barcelona for some time now with regard to any kind of music that does not fall into a mainstream category+the sounds of innovation, of risk. In order to get a hearing, these artists appear sporadically on the genre circuits (jazz, rock, etc.) or in the standard music festivals (the only specialized music festival per se being Sónar). But the point is, they have no circuit of their own. Or if one exists, it would be those fifty concerts organised by independent groups in provisionally symbiotic spaces. It is equally clear that the audience is a great deal larger on this pseudo-circuit than in the conventional nightspots that book this kind of music from time to time. An additional finding of the same survey is that virtually all of the artists and groups in the sample have their homes, their recording studios and their rehearsal spaces in Gràcia+and not only along the La Línea axis but spread throughout the community. So what we wind up with is an extraordinary cultural map of the area, which can be regarded as a vast experimental laboratory. A neighbourhood that was once inhabited by traditional artisans has been taken over by the new artisans in electronics and cybernetics. The survey also revealed that most of the record companies issuing experimental music are located in the Gràcia district as well.

During the late sixties and throughout the first half of the seventies,
Barcelona was experiencing an artistic phenomenon parallel to the transformation occurring all over the western world. It was referred to as progressive music, and went by a different name in each country (Krautrock in Germany, Canterbury sound in England, etc.). The music had a strong experimental component, venturing beyond the dominant pop and rock styles. In Gràcia there were two clubs (now defunct) and two theatres that made a practice of showcasing these pioneering forms: Nostremon, the San Carlos Club, La Salle de Gràcia and the Club Helena. Nor should we forget the role of the progressive music festivals (Price, Salón Iris) in Barcelona during that era, which awakened the enthusiasm of a large public. At the same time the radio stations devoted substantial airtime to bands like Música Dispersa, Máquina! and Pan y Regaliz. And the so-called gauche divine (well-heeled leftists), from their plush headquarters in the Boccaccio club, came up with the financial backing for the adventure.

A few years later somehow
this nascent explosion was transformed into the Laietana movement, with its centre of operations in Zeleste, a club on the Plateria street in the Old Quarter of Barcelona. The Laietan exponents, with the same spirit of enterprise and innovation, became involved in jazz, contributing many local and Mediterranean sonorities. As an outcome of this development, the Laietans made contact with the artists and the music scene of the Raspall square, generating a major fusion process that is still going strong today. But it was during the early days that Gato Pérez relocated to Raspall and formed the Secta Sònica band. Many musicians of the Laietana new wave set up shop in the quarter, and others, like the renowned Rambliolia, rented rehearsal space in the area.

In the mid-eighties,
Gràcia was host to a new generation of musicians, many of them from England (William Bennet and the entire Come Organisation, the Murphy Federation, Milk from Cheltenham, and Jim Amos), who took up residence in the quarter, and other outside artists and bands began to drop by regularly (David Tibet, Pascal Comelade, Pierre Bastien, Vivenza, etc.), cutting discs in the newborn Laboratori de Música Desconeguda (L.M.D.), and the Semàfor dels Desemparats. Another studio, today's El Laboratorio, was also a major production centre. At the time, the Gomis street alone had five recording studios including El Laboratorio lining the pavement. The Orquídea, a venue on the Bruniquer street, slated hundreds of live gigs throughout the eighties. This was also the nerve centre of Free Difussion, a collective formed by groups like Perucho's, Jaume Cuadreny, and La Propiedad Es Un Robo; and also appearing there frequently were Macromassa, Tendre Tembles, Suck Electrònic Enciclopèdic, Neuronium and the Colectivo de Improvisación Libre. Free jazz, electronic music and other cutting-edge forms intermingled in the small club. Simultaneously, two Gràcia-based outfits (Cuc Sonat and La Puça) started bringing in top names in European experimentalism, such as Henry Cow, Embryo, Yoshko Seffer and the Art Zoyd 3. The Orquídea was also the scene of a major breakthrough: Radio P.I.C.A. started their broadcasts from Gràcia in 1981 and presented the first recordings of the post-industrial new wave in that club. Departing from the language of mainstream pop, this new age trend introduced the futurist concepts of noise and ambient sound, in the attempt to create an absolutely sensitive aural universe, incorporating elements such as the collage and the found object, legacies of Surrealism and the Dadaists. English and local musicians forged an alliance, and for the next several years all the releases of Industrial Records, the Come Organisation and the World Satanic Network Systems bore the distinctive patina of the Gràcia experience, while the recordings made here saw the light of day thanks to the Madrid label Esplendor Geométrico Discos. Several works by the filmmaker Derek Jarman and the albums of Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, Vagina Dentata, Organ, Avant Dernières Pensées, among other projects, were milestones in the birth, attended by Gràcia in Barcelona and the city of London, of post-industrial sound. Discographic output during the three Barcelonese musical eras amounted to hundreds of albums and transcended the local market to be were warmly accepted in Europe, Japan and the United States, where the sound received and still receives considerable attention from the music press.

In the late eighties,
the Unió Solar was founded by coalitions and artists, who joined forces to promote activities in the area around the Raspall and Sol squares. This association lasted three years and was responsible for major cultural events, among them: the first performance of La Fura dels Baus (Solar's launching project) and the first concert in Spain of the Bel Canto Orquestra (Pascal Comelade's orchestra of toy instruments), along with many others. A great percentage of these outdoor concerts were held during Gràcia's Festa Major, and their impact gave rise to the radical modernization of this traditional neighbourhood street festival. During that period Transformadors, the cultural workshop of the Barcelona City Council Youth Department, began to schedule concerts almost daily in the KGB club, giving the Barcelonese an opportunity to see experimental groups from all over Spain and from all over the world, some of them widely acclaimed. 5. During the nineties an association (recently disbanded) called Poetes, Artistes, Performers i Associats launched the International Polypoetry Festival, with the support of the Gràcia Neighbourhood Federation. The festival was part of the Gràcia's Festa Major for three years, held in 1993 in the Virreina square, in 1994 in the Rovira square and in 1995 in the John Lennon square. Under the grab-bag concept of "polypoetry", the festival drew performance artists and poets from the USA, Canada, and Italy, as well as local mavericks like Albert Plà and the Koniec, and the legendary German & Indian fusion sounds of Embryo. The initiative, produced within the framework of the supposedly traditional Festa Major, not only went down well with audiences, but was also acclaimed in the press and promoted by the neighbourhood residents, who regarded the gathering as alternative entertainment that did not necessarily involve either indiscriminate drinking and mobile discotheques or the foam+bath parties which had recently come into vogue.

Approaching the end of the nineties, the Gràcia quarter is now packed with associations and small civic-sponsored venues which are trying to generate culture adapted to the everyday needs of stimulation and surprise, which the urbanites sample with futuristic discernment. Organisations like Heliogàbal, formed by musicians, painters and communications professionals; S.O.R.O.L.L., which sets up poetry readings and performance+actions for its members; Arco y Flecha, which brought John Zorn and Fred Frith to Barcelona; the very active Associació de Músics de Jazz i Noves Músiques de Catalunya, which schedules evening concerts in Plaça Rius i Taulet square and releases internationally distributed compilation albums; the Associació Laboratori de Música Desconeguda (L.M.D.), active since 1984 in record production and concert programming; Còclea, devoted to the dissemination and production of contemporary music; and Radio P.I.C.A. with its sixteen years of activity as an association, which has always worked intensively to coordinate and provide exposure for all that is innovative in sound. As for the small venues, bars that attempt to transcend the "nightclub context", which have now spread to other parts of the city, offer creative ventures of great interest that often pass unnoticed because of their impermanence. The following represents just a small sample: the Galpón Sur, La Nola, El Dorado, El Puntal, Mi Bar, the Jazz Petit, L'Amagatall, the Je-rrix To Mix Bar, El Cafè, the Kalahari, the Cafè del Sol, Alfa, the Ateneu Cafè, the Zoona Libre, L'Animal, Salambó, Virreina, La Cafetera, Andy Capp, El Ave Turuta, El Cafè del Teatre, Mirasol, Equinox Sol, Terra, KGB, Monumental, Estàndar, among the small to medium capacity venues. Even the smallest offer a wide spectrum, often featuring the ambient creations of Carles Pazos, poetry readings, diggiridoo concerts, and so forth.

Emblematic theatres are also functioning in Gràcia, several of which have opted for alternative programmes of performance art, experimentation, polypoetry+in short, all creative endeavours in the genres referred to as "scientific cabaret". The most prominent are the Artenbrut, the Regina, the Teatreneu and the Sala Beckett.

Also meriting our attention are all those performance spaces that are no longer active, which played a crucial role through their ambitious programming during recent decades and which are still there, perhaps looking forward to another opportunity: Els Lluïsos de Gràcia, La Salle de Gràcia, the Fòrum Vergès, the Club Helena, and the Centre Moral, among others.

With regard to cinemas, the nine auditoriums within the Verdi multiplex and the two in the Casablanca offer a wide choice of cultural events complementing their critically important activity (there is no doubt about the fact that these ambitious art houses devote much of their programming to experimental film, and equally apparent is their willingness to include complementary presentations on stage).

Moving on to the music production centres, as distinguished from those engaged in dissemination, we find the recording studios specialized in experimental forms: The Lie/Doubt Area, L.M.D., MultiSounds Mobile Unit, Semàfor dels Desemparats, the RS Estudi, El Laboratorio, the Koniec Estudi, and Vamp Slam. As for discography, in Barcelona there are now three record labels issuing experimental music, two of which are Gràcia-based: Liquid Records and G3G Records.

ALL THE INFORMATION PRESENTED SO FAR
LEADS TO THE FOLLOWING REFLECTION

Given the fact that the entertainment options which Gràcia provided for the city have gradually been abandoned in favour of the new infrastructures in the environs of the port, it seems that what is called for now is the complete recycling of the extensive network of leisure-time establishments if we intend to surpass that rather pathetic offering, a "fusion" of alcohol and canned foreign music.

The development of a true European nucleus of experimental music is an accomplished fact which, so far, most Barcelona citizens have been unaware of, and which should be incorporated into Barcelona's cultural life and made accessible. In this way, the movement would join up with the other two main musical currents in the quarter: the Catalan rumba gitana and traditional music. The former enjoys splendid health, thanks to the activities of the Gypsy associations, as well as to the non-Gypsy musicians who fully focused on the form, creating a singular musical texture, heir to that initial Laietan-Caribbean-Gypsy cross-fertilization. The second stream owes its staying-power to the efforts of a community which, year after year, has been able to define a context for investigation and innovation in the area of traditional forms. At the present time, the Centre Artesà Tradicionàrius (C.A.T.) has considerable resonance in the global arena, a large listening audience, and a substantial discography.

This three-fold musical offering should make Gràcia a European soundscape, an attraction of the first rank with regard to the living culture. We should now be talking about music in evolution: (1) about the fusion of the rumba in a universal modern folk genre, a process that has already occurred, for example, with reggae and raï; (2) about the progressive elements introduced in traditional European music, infusing it with the same kind of contemporary spirit that rock can convey; and (3) about experimental music, a permanent laboratory of all future folklore, the common heritage of all advanced societies and developing urban cultures.

Regarding the subject matter of this study, just as most of Barcelona's jazz clubs are concentrated in the Old City and the Reial square, Gràcia can be our city's centre of audio innovation, similar to the pioneering enclaves that flourish in New York, Amsterdam and Berlin. From everything discussed so far, we can see what must be done.

HIGHLY RELEVANT OBJECTIVES

To establish "Gràcia Soundscape" as an organisation, grounded in the circumstantial reality described above, to serve as an conceptual office+agency facilitating the coordination and reinforcement of live experimental music in the Gràcia quarter, as well as projecting Gracia's image as an urban cultural enclave accessible to all Barcelona citizens, to the production centres and to the music industry in the area (continuous programming, the rationalization of the programmes, series, festivals, the affiliation of the entire club sector, etc.).

To reinforce our own initiative through relations with the municipal and local cultural bodies and organisations, bringing our goals into harmony with the city's cultural objectives for the coming century.

To project the image of Gracia as an experimental European soundscape through interaction with the other progressive music environments in Europe, with a clear interest in participating in cultural programmes and exchanges sponsored by European organisations at the urban cultural level, exchanges, etc. In addition, the links with all the cities in the world which have a unique creative identity must be strengthened.

To upload immediately all the data bases, programmes, and the stated purposes of this new civic organisation on the computer networks.

To involve other city experimental groups working in the plastic arts, the theatre, video and the cinema in the projects being carried out, which is actually happening right now, spontaneously.

To forge links of close cooperation with the other alternative music currents in Gracia, which we referred to earlier, in order to project an international image of the living soundscape with all its wealth and personality.

THE MOST PRACTICAL INSTRUMENTAL MEASURES

To maintain an on-going interaction between the project and the groups and venues that are backing it.

To keep a permanent record of the creative activities of local artists and groups and of all those who are available on the European circuits.

To support the productions and initiatives of all the clubs, associations and venues in the quarter that organise concerts and activities.

To issue an activities guide on a regular basis, which will be immediately available all over the city, and through television, radio and print, as well as distributed through the post.

To provide information and dissemination services to all the publications in Barcelona, as well as to those in other parts of Spain and in the European Union, so that cultural tourists have the basic data in advance.

To maintain on-going active relationships with the associations involved in experimental video, cinema and the plastic arts for the purpose of presenting screenings and series in venues that are not suitable for holding live concerts.

Information technology: To upload on the internet all the information processed. To create a web page welcoming users to Gracia.

To support the logistics and planning of the technical resources of all the operators, studios and infrastructures in Gracia.

To establish a technical department; to rationalize the neighbourhood resources; to provide technical assistance.

International relations. To keep in constant communication with the associations that provide support for experimental music in the rest of Europe.

To present the project GRACIA EXPERIMENTAL SOUNDSCAPE at the SKRAEP (Experimental Music Forum) and at the European Symposium of Experimental Music to be held in Copenhagen in October of 1996, as one of the events held within the framework of its Cultural Capital programme.

To administer all aid and subsidies, feasibility studies of all the activities, income, expenses and cost+effective methods.

Return to the source