Phonos Laboratory of Electroacoustic Music

The Phonos Laboratory of Electroacoustic music, founded in 1974 by Josep Maria Mestres Quadreny, Andrés Lewin-Richter and Lluís Callejo i Creus, was the first electroacoustic music studio in Catalonia, Spain. It was known as a space for experimentation which, under the direction of a musician of Chilean origin, Gabriel Brncic, would become a point of generational transfer and catalyzing the concerns of musicians that approached him from conservatories (such as Mercè Capdevila, Alberto Iglesias, Eduardo Polonio) or jazz and post-Laietana dissidents.

The Free Improvisation Collective was a musical project created in Phonos in 1980 by Claudio Zulián and Joan Josep Ordinas, where musicians from all these currents circulated. This mixture of ideas resulted in new collective projects, such as Naïf, Cuarto Albano or Multimúsica. Phonos became a foundation in 1984 and eventually joined with the Miró Foundation. Later, it moved to Pompeu Fabra University, from where it provided academic access to associated musicians and nurtured new generations of experimenters. Meanwhile, the Metronome room, a private initiative by Rafael Tous, periodically opened to sound experimentation linked to contemporary art (until 2006); Later, the most radical scenes took refuge in neighborhood clubs, such as L' Orquídea.