"Contemplation. I record public soundscapes that become part of a private collection. The crossing of two busy avenues at noon, an empty house’s patio in the afternoon, a fifth floor balcony in the middle of the night. I think about all the involuntary performers who don’t know that they are being recorded: a harmonica player busking in the street, a blind man asking for handouts on a corner, boys and girls coming back from school, dogs who may not know each other barking between them from one block to another. Improvisers? I’m alone at home recording acoustic guitar pieces and I picture them in a dialogue with the sounds of my neighbourhood. Overlapping timbres, confusing textures. Can the strings of a guitar resound to the demanded engine of a bus in the distance? In this intimate space there are other sounds which I can’t control: a radio tuned to white noise, a wall that is being hammered intermittently, a kettle boiling, thunders announcing a storm. Interference?
Schizophonia. Montage as a procedure to create a space-time and resignify listening. An impossible counterpoint".
Nacho Castillo.
Guitarist, composer, improviser and sound artist born in Buenos Aires in 1992. His latest works use montage as a procedure to set up a dialogue between lo-fi audio and video recordings and free improvisation informed by contemporary classical, noise and experimental music. His latest piece, “C1405”, a 30 min. work featuring prepared acoustic guitar improvisations and field recordings from his neighbourhood in Buenos Aires was released in October 2019 in on the label SELLO POSTAL. In 2019 he also collaborated with composer and sound artist Catriel Nievas on the recording of his graphic score “Favourite Guitar”, which was released on Speculations Editions. In 2018 he self-released a cassette called “ATENCION! MAQUINAS TRABAJANDO”, featuring free improvisations for prepared and processed electric guitar. A derivative video-art piece called “RIESGO ELÉCTRICO” was also created in the same year, taking fragments from these improvisations and setting them up to field recordings and video footage recorded with a mobile phone. This short film was chosen for the IN-SONORA sound art festival (Madrid, Spain, 2020). In 2016 he co-created with Julián Rodríguez the sound design for the animation short “Y” directed by Laura Desmery and Antonella Pitti. He’s been an active part of the Buenos Aires independent music scene since 2007, performing with different projects connected to popular music such as Rodríguez/Castillo (with whom he released the album “NUEVAS OPOSICIONES” in 2016) and Café Turrone. Since 2015 he works as an assistant director for Argentinian multi-disciplinary artist Julián Galay, with whom he collaborated on his works “La estructura inerte” (cheLA/BP.17, 2017), “TODO var. I” (CC2037/FIBA, 2017) and “casa” (CETC, 2018). His studies include private lessons on jazz guitar, classical guitar, free improvisation and composition, photography, video and sound art and academic Composition studies at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes.
WEBSITEnachocastillo.com.ar
INSTAGRAM@neatdisorderBANDCAMPnachocastillo.bandcamp.com
