Talea

A talea is both faithful and transformed. It remains genetically identical to the source, yet grows into something new through a different environment. It is not preservation or betrayal. It is organic continuation, the way traditional music has always moved through time and space.

Our composition embodies the talea principle by maintaining an unbroken genetic thread to the source field recording while allowing that material to flourish in an entirely new sonic environment. The original recording serves not as a piece to be preserved intact, but as living genetic material — its essential characteristics, its rhythmic DNA, remain present throughout our transformation. Yet just as a talea cutting develops new leaves, new branches, new forms of expression when planted in different soil, our work has reimagined these elements through a compositional language that could not have existed in the original context.

The melodic contours, harmonic implications, or rhythmic gestures embedded in the field recording have been interiorised and then allowed to grow according to new rules — different timbral choices, altered temporal frameworks, reimagined spatial relationships. What makes this approach powerful is that the connection remains audible and traceable; listeners can sense the rootedness even as they encounter something unmistakably fresh and contemporary.

This method honours how musical traditions have always evolved — not through static repetition, but through the kind of generative transmission that the talea metaphor captures so precisely. Our composition demonstrates that fidelity to source material and creative innovation are not opposing forces but complementary aspects of the same organic process. The original recording lives on, not as a frozen artifact, but as active creative DNA that continues to generate new musical possibilities through our intervention.

After listening both individually and collectively to the original field recording, and consulting the accompanying material, we recorded multiple improvisations in an eight-hour studio session, then chose our favourite take.

Musicians:
Francesco Ganassin: clarinet, electronics, dziga loop (custom made electronic instrument)
Enrico Milani: cello, objects
Sergio Marchesini: piano, electronics
Andrea Ruggeri: percussion, electronics
Gianluca Segato: lap steel guitar, electronics
Alberto Zuanon: double bass

Geedal in the forest with male voices reimagined by Sonic Investigation Unit.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds