Delayed with Javi (live)
Javi’s contribution to La Mostra’s biennial unfolded inside the Convent de Sant Agustí like a quiet act of urban archaeology. Tilect’s pairing of his sound design with Marta Lofi’s live visuals turned the cloister into a resonant chamber where Ciutat Vella’s streets reappeared as spectral traces. He approached the theme in the only way he knows: wander, listen, record, return to a quiet corner, and let the fragments dictate the form. The resulting piece bends the city into a dream logic of its own, where echoes slip into harmony and environmental debris reshapes itself into something strangely elegant.
There is a particular magic in Javi’s work, a way of treating everyday noise like soft clay. Years of diving into granular processes, pedals, and the raw geometry of sound have given him a language that feels both intimate and slightly extraterrestrial. The first time we heard him, at Mostra nearly four years ago, he and Alex as .apart made the city feel alive in a way that bordered on surreal, like Barcelona’s neighborhoods were whispering their stories directly into the PA. This new recording carries that same spark but with a deeper sense of curiosity. Close your eyes and you might imagine an alien craft touching down in Ciutat Vella and trying to negotiate with unbothered locals who answer confusion with a casual sax riff. The tension is playful rather than dramatic, a shimmering frequency that settles the body rather than startling it. These thirty-five minutes show an artist who keeps refining how memory becomes texture and how place becomes pulse. It’s a pure joy to include this one in the series, a quiet demonstration of how listening can tilt your sense of place in unexpected ways.