The Calle Record project is the product of its creators’ interest in every kind of folk music and from their curiosity in the impact that urban landscapes have on sound together with the improvisation that these kinds of performances always include. Many online sound archives already exist, none however have been dedicated exclusively to street music and fewer still aim to study this phenomenon wi
th the objective of creating a new type of musical map.
“Calle Record” wants to create the biggest possible archive of musical heritage in the streets. This information makes it possible to analyse the cultural and political influences (migration influxes, colonisations) as well as centuries-old traditions, right from the birth of street music. The map of recordings will allow us to analyse the category and genre maybe even allowing us to understand the origins and hybridisations that generated, and generate still today improbable musical styles like Bambuko, a traditional type of Colombian music that uses the structure of the European Waltz and polka. Aside from the musical analyses, “Calle Record” is particularly interested in the contexts in which these performances take place. The place of recording, its resonances, its contaminations with the sounds of everyday life (people, animals, mechanical, industrial and natural sounds) are a key factor. These elements often give life to new and unique compositions, sometimes accidentally, which can be surprisingly innovative and which above all contextualise the music in a specific geographical, political, social and historical moment. The technique of field recording (audio recording made out-with dedicated sound studios) which is favoured by Calle Record, allows us to capture the sound interactions between music, situations and real places, including their sound landscapes (soundscapes). In this way, field recording supports the capture of any sound event, thereby allowing us to discover music rather than creating it.
