The final sound (for now!) from our trip to Seville, and it’s a fascinating rhythmic field recording. The vast and impressive Plaza de Espana is stunning enough on its own, and has a wide, spacious reverb as footsteps and voices carry far across the space.

Combined with that, the keynote sound is of castanet salesmen, clacking away expertly with their tiny instruments to entice tourists, creating a soundscape akin to tiny wooden crickets chirping across the plaza.

It’s a remarkable recording in that it captures something unique to the space, and looking at a photo of the Plaza de Espana, you’d never guess that the most dominant sound would be clacking castanets.

The reimagined version takes some of the rhythm patterns from the castanets, and blends them with skittering, jazzy drum patterns, snatches of vocal from the field recording and a simple bassline to sit under it.

City version:

 

Memory version: