Skip links
Home
Join email list

The memory of insects at Monreale

Published on: Published in: Latest
The view from Monreale as we recorded the sounds of cicadas.
The view from Monreale as we recorded the sounds of cicadas.

Continuing our journey around Sicily, today we visit the exquisite Monreale Cathedral, a truly majestic building and a feast for the eyes.

Wandering to a secluded corner outside the cathedral on a hot August day, we found cicadas buzzing away seemingly in their hundreds in the trees above our heads, a shimmering natural chorus from insects that contrasted with the human choruses of voices that would have been heard inside the cathedral over centuries.

For the reimagined version, we’ve taken a journey from the natural towards the unnatural, gradually replacing the cicadas’ chorus with layers of arpeggiated synths, imagining the arpeggios as the musical equivalent of chattering insects, until the piece becomes entirely synthetic by the end.

City version:

 

Memory version: 

Listen to this next