Rio Douro/Douro River” is the result of a field recording journey along this northern Portuguese river.The trip was undertook in the Summer of 2010 by Virgilio Oliveira and Joana Estevao, both students at the LCC/UAL at the time, with the intention of capturing the different sonic ambiences the Douro encounters/creates through is path on to the Atlantic Ocean. The ancient rail line that follows part of the river’s journey, the ever present cicadas, the carps and most importantly the people that inhabit these areas, create a beautiful sonic symbiosis between nature and man.
Rio Douro/Douro River, Vol.2 is a compilation of several aural happenings and ambiences captured during the Winter of 2012 in the Rio Douro, Portugal. During the hot months of Summer, the wild life is predominant in the soundscape, which seems to cloth everything else around. With the arrival of Winter, life seems to slow down, and an apparent quietness invades these spaces. The fauna, the tourism, the labour in the vineyards, and even the local inhabitants seem to vanish from the landscape, as they wait for the warmer months of Spring.
The river Duero/Douro stands as a natural monument, a liquid pyramid which transcends our individual mortality. The recordings captured along its course are but small memories of its timeless journey; aural slices of a continuous natural cycle.
Picos de Urbión, the source of its earthly journey, is a glacier carved mountain massif in the spanish provinces of Soria and Burgos. At 2228 meters of altitude, its peak is one of the highest points in the Sistema Ibérico (Iberean System), a main system of mountain ranges in Spain.
"Picos de Urbión, the source of the Duero" is a composition of field recordings captured in May, 2013, throughout the area, focusing on the Duero and its delicate, yet brutal descent. High in the mountain, a landscape covered with snow begins to melt, giving place to small streams which gradually combine into a fierce body of water, descending through forests, stopping at lagoons, encountering small villages.
The natural setting is breath taking.
