Delayed with... Josephine Soundscapes
There are certain people who permanently alter the way you listen to music. They quietly open doors you didn’t know existed, leading you into unfamiliar territory that eventually becomes part of your own musical language.
Experimental and avant-garde music are corners I only began exploring properly during the pandemic, and even more intensely after we connected with friends and crews from Madrid and Barcelona. Discovering this music online is one thing, but experiencing it in the right setting, surrounded by people who care about listening, is something else entirely. Spending time with the artists, hearing the stories behind the performances, and sharing those moments together leaves a lasting mark. It changes the way you hear music and fills you with a renewed desire to keep digging, collecting, and creating.
One of the people who had that effect on me is José Salas, better known as Josephine Soundscapes.
Over the years, I’ve had the chance to spend time on and off the dancefloor with José, collaborate with him and share lineups, and it quickly became clear why so many people in Madrid’s and Spain’s experimental community hold him in such high regard. While many artists focus on building their own careers, José has spent just as much time building opportunities for others. Through projects like Temple at Espacio Perpendicular, Club Paraíso Madrid, CALMA, and Campos de Marte, he has helped cultivate a community where listening itself becomes the main event. That mindset naturally carries into his DJ sets. Rather than following genres or dancefloor expectations, he assembles pieces that speak to one another through mood, texture and association. Sounds from different places, decades and traditions coexist naturally, making each performance feel like a carefully considered conversation. His sets invite curiosity instead of demanding attention, drawing listeners deeper without ever feeling exclusive or academic.
What I admire most is that sense of balance. José is never afraid to challenge an audience, but he also knows exactly when to offer a moment of relief. After passages filled with tension, abstraction or noise, something warm and familiar often appears, gently resetting the room before the journey continues.
We are incredibly happy to present the latest edition of Delayed with, featuring a recording of Josephine’s performance at FLIPAS Festival, where he created the live soundtrack for Yu Depeng’s video installation Diary of a Hermit inside the Auditorium of the Museo del Prado. The performance was commissioned as part of the festival’s program, taking inspiration from Antonio Muñoz Degrain’s 1866 painting Landscape of El Pardo as the Fog Lifts.
There’s no better introduction than Josephine’s own words:
“On October 24, I performed a DJ set in front of a diverse audience of nearly 400 people during the presentation of the video art piece “Diary of a Hermit” by Yu Depeng, as part of the FLIPAS Festival 2025, at the Auditorium of the Museo del Prado, Spain’s most important art museum. After receiving the commission, the starting point for both of us was the painting “Paisaje del Pardo al disiparse la niebla” (Landscape of El Pardo as the Fog Lifts)* (1866) by Antonio Muñoz Degrain. From this work, Yu Depeng and I explored the notion of landscape as an expanded space of resonances, memory, and the tensions of one who has chosen to withdraw from the world and now observes it from a distance.
My DJ set as Josephine’s Soundscapes moved through isolationist soundscapes, between synthesis and controlled noise, Eastern folk, and erratic melodies, creating a live soundtrack through the layering of music from three XDJ units, aiming to reflect the complexity of the thoughts of a contemplative ascetic.
Thanks to everyone who immersed themselves in this experience, and to the FLIPAS team, the Museo del Prado, Fundación SGAE, the Goethe-Institut, and Universidad Carlos III for making it possible.”
This is not a mix to leave playing in the background. Give it your full attention. Put on a good pair of headphones, settle into a comfortable chair and allow yourself to follow where it leads. If you’ve never encountered Josephine’s world before, this recording is a beautiful place to begin. And if you already know his work, you are in for quite a treat!
Tracklist:
Soundscape – Ermitaño en El Prado
Pete Namlook & Tetsu Inoue – The Invisible Landscape (Part 08)
Yao Bingyan – High Mountains
Marja Ahti – Lost Lake
Multicast Dynamics – Ancient Circuits
Pinkcourtesyphone – Temporal Extravagance
Bastarda – Litaniae
Riccardo La Foresta – I
Nala Sinephro – Space 1
Javi.apart – What’s the Matter?
Stephen O’Malley – Dolmens & Lighthouses
Piotr Kurek – Paper Tigers
JL Maire / Alfredo Costa Monteiro – Estelas (Huellas)
Bulgarian Voices Angelite feat. Huun-Huur-Tu – Mountain Story
Tetsu Inoue – Tree and Me
Shan Kiu – 流水 (琴曲)
Ilios – The Continuum of Emanation from the One
David Toop – Always She Seemed to Be Listening to Some Foray in the Blood, That Had No Known Setting
Piotr Kurek – Xiake
Joan La Barbara – Quatre Petites Bêtes
Jordan Deal – Horn of the Beetles
Vicky Zissou – Natura
Verde Prato – Mundu Leunena