Commisioned by

It Rises All Nectar

Release Date

August 2, 2023

Project

Music composition

With the fundamental idea of using the soundscape as a painting to bring different elements together, It Rises All Nectar joined a new call from Cities and Memory, the global sound rescue project based in Oxford.

The birds were originally recorded in the Nature Reserve at London Gatwick Airport, London’s second largest airport and the second busiest in the UK after Heathrow.

Gatwick has 75 hectares of woodland, grassland and wetlands inhabited by hundreds of species of mammals, birds, insects and bees.

The birdsong was segmented by frequencies and then sequenced. It coexists with Javi Alcalá’s Spanish guitar, piano, and digital versions of a celesta, violins, violas, clarinets, pads, basses, wolf howls, the sound of water, and electronics that highlight the change of moods.

The lyrics appear in spoken words format, and refer to the awareness of our aquatic condition. It is intended as a wake-up call for the care of water, and is articulated with sounds from a branch of the river Hron, in the small village of Nová Baña (Slovakia), where the composer lives.

“The vacant throne in the sky is that unreachable, utopian place, for which it is worth taking care of our life on earth, which is the only real and concrete thing we have. Our armour beats on this plane, inviting us to take action”, adds Cristian Estrella.

About the featured artist

Javi Alcalá was born in Barcelona in 1984. He completed his higher studies in jazz guitar at Musikene (San Sebastián) in 2011, and completed his training with a master’s degree in jazz guitar at the Amsterdam Conservatory in 2014. Some of his teachers include Jorge Rossy, Guillermo Klein, Perico Sambeat, Jesse Van Ruller and Martijn Van Iterson. He currently complements his activity on the Barcelona jazz scene with his teaching work at the Montmeló municipal music school.

This single is the fifth release of the collaborative project with which Estrella builds creative bridges with artists from all over the world, and joins previous works with Ramsés Luna (Mexico), Pedro Amodio (Argentina), Ivana Mer (Slovakia) and Gustavo Jacob (Mexico).

It was composed in Carcassonne (France), recorded in Barcelona, and mixed and mastered in Plovan (France).

El trono vacante

Video filmed and edited by Cristian Estrella in Plovan, Montmorillon (France) and Santa Coloma (Barcelona).