Purveyors of: Audio-Astronauts, Dance Floor Connections, Soundscapes
File next to: Mort Garson, Arca, Tirzah
Appearing: Astrid Sonne + Stefana Fratila: Wavelength, September 27, 2024 @ St. Anne’s Parish (651 Dufferin Street)
Stefana Fratila is a Romanian-born artist, composer and sound designer based in Toronto. Her work explores nature and space, aiming to emulate the atmospheric conditions of the planets in our solar system. To do this, she created Sononaut, eight open-source VST plug-ins created for digital audio workstations made in collaboration with artist Jen Kutler, using calculations by NASA astronomer and planetary scientist Dr. Conor Nixon.
She is also a DJ and co-founder of Crip Rave, an event platform showcasing and prioritizing Crip, Disabled, Deaf, Mad, and Sick body-minds within safer and more accessible rave spaces. Wavelength’s Lian McMillan talked to Stefana about her research based music, rave culture and work on film.
WL: You went on a series of research trips to prepare for your debut album “I want to leave this Earth behind”. What was that journey like and how did it inform your music?
SF: It was a very fulfilling experience to have the opportunity to go to NASA and ask questions about sound traveling in different planetary atmospheres with the scientists and researchers who are in the most ideal position to speculate. This project began with a long and thorough research phase before I even considered what the music itself would sound like. I took rigorous notes and conducted many interviews at both Goddard and JPL, which eventually informed design choices in the Sononaut VSTs. These different lines of questioning and sonic threads all informed the choices I later made in writing and producing my album.
WL: Your music is electronic, primarily using synthesizers and plugins. Could you walk us through what your music-making process is like?
PS: With this album, I wrote each song in a day— so across 8 days. I began with the weather first, using the “weather loops” I created for the Sononaut VSTs. I would listen back to each planet’s weather system (its corresponding “loop”) while writing melodies, to help ground me within each planet’s atmosphere. If I was working on “Mars”, I would have the Mars weather loop playing constantly at loud volume while I wrote and recorded parts. I also have a very wonderful (and erotic!) French tarot deck (specifically planets, sun and moon themed) that I would pull cards from every morning to guide my day. I’m very grateful because I got to write the album during a residency at Centro Mexicano para la Música y las Artes Sonoras (CMMAS) in Morelia, Mexico— where I had an octophonic sound system, so I wrote the record while using 8 discrete channels. You might be catching onto a link here: 8 planets, 8 days, 8 speakers…
WL: Each track on the album correlates to the soundscape of each planet in our solar system. Which planet would you most like to visit and why?
SF: It’s an impossible question for me to answer because my answer changes all the time. But, assuming I’m able to breathe in and withstand these atmospheres, I would love to visit Saturn. I’m so in love with its rings, I wish I could spin around it alongside the many materials and particles. I’m also super curious about the oceans on Neptune, and what lies within them. Uranus is also my favourite in terms of colour, it would be incredible to see in real life and it has rings of its own, which I would love to witness.
WL: You co-founded Crip Rave in 2019 to showcase and prioritize Crip body-minds. How does your music intersect with rave culture?
SF: Rave culture, historically, has had a lot to do with being at the margins and creating sites for freedom, specifically born out of the resistance and community building of Queer, Trans, Two-Spirit, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour communities. With Crip Rave, we are taking that spirit and extending it to disability. Unfortunately, disability and providing access is most often an afterthought for a lot of music spaces which is why we began doing the work that we do. My DJ sets have a more obvious through-line to rave culture because I DJ under the name “DJ Crip Time”. But, I also incorporated my experience with disability, madness, and chronic illness into my album— the central idea there being that outer space is a disabling force. What does it mean that no human body-mind can withstand the planetary atmospheres of the solar system except for Earth? Outer space becomes an equalizing force. I feel like this is a direct parallel to the rave scene and specifically the dance floor— which, when it’s at its best, means each dancing body is equal and a part of an experience together.
WL: How can Toronto better address accessibility needs in music venues?
SF: This is a huge question, and there are so many things to list and they would apply to all cities– some small examples: offering harm reduction supplies, free water, de-stimulation spaces, and actually booking Crip musicians and DJs. With Toronto specifically though, we really need bathrooms on the ground floor. That this city’s bathrooms are almost always located in the basement is so brutal.
WL: Is there any upcoming Stefana Fratila news you can share?
SF: I worked on a few very beautiful films this year, one of which I scored (“Aida non plus”) and one which I sound designed (“Measures for a Funeral”), and both just premiered at TIFF. With Measures, I had a very creatively fulfilling time working with the director (Sofia Bohdanowicz), who was very open to my unconventional approach. For example, we visited the gravesite of the film’s subject matter (violinist Kathleen Parlow) with electromagnetic microphones and I incorporated those sounds into the design of the film. The film is all about grief and this felt like a way in which we could honour Kathleen and facilitate a means through which she could speak to the audience. Collaborating on films is such a beautiful experience, and I tend to approach my film work as a musician and sound artist. I hope more audiences get to hear these films in a theatre soon.
Don’t miss Stefana Fratila on September 27th at St. Anne’s Parish Hall with visuals by Diana Lynn VanderMeulen. Tickets are available now!
– Interview by Lian McMillan