Moniker Eggplant enters a busy fall season with the release of SECOND ALBUM, the new 12” vinyl and digital outing from UMBRAFONO, the project of Granada-based multimedia artist Enrique del Castillo. Known for hand-drawing sound directly onto film strips, UMBRAFONO has been steadily carving out a reputation in experimental circles. In 2020, del Castillo received the international PowSOLO award for sound art and experimental music, personally selected by the late legend Ryuichi Sakamoto from nearly 800 proposals. His live work has taken him to MACBA Barcelona, Fusion Festival Germany, and beyond, establishing a singular practice that fuses visual art and sonic exploration.
The foundations of UMBRAFONO’s work trace back to 1920s innovators who etched sound into celluloid. Using custom-built optical readers, del Castillo engraves geometric forms and ornamental patterns onto 35mm film strips, transforming light itself into audio. With three synced projectors, UMBRAFONO translates patterns of light into sound, where distance determines pitch, shapes define timbre, and size sets volume – a direct echo of cinema’s first analog soundtracks, reimagined for today. The result is an approach that feels both archival and fresh: analog sound-making that resists digital reproduction, tethered to the fragile physicality of film while opening pathways to unexpected auditory worlds.
On ‘SECOND ALBUM’, these principles find form in a collection of spectral beat-like structures, krautrock-inspired textures, and fragments that ripple with analog warmth. Repeating shapes and frequencies bloom into dense soundscapes, while rhythmic patterns pulse with hypnotic regularity. Each piece is at once visual score and sonic composition, inseparable in their conception, and together map a landscape where forgotten techniques reemerge as contemporary experiment.
“Like a master chef preparing eggplant in countless variations, UMBRAFONO draws from a rich palette of visual ingredients,” notes Moniker Eggplant. “Each composition emerges from the interplay between light and shadow, where carefully drawn frequencies layer into complex harmonic structures that reveal new flavors with each listen.”
Founded in 2012 in Berlin, Germany, independent label Moniker Eggplant releases diverse electronic music on physical and digital formats, often accompanied by eggplant-based recipes.
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