Raquel Gonzalez

Chicago musician & composer Raquel Gonzalez has spent the
last five years as a studio and live musician for various bands
throughout the Midwest, often involved in the composing and
arranging process. Their composition series, Sonic Creations with
a Lyra-8 highlights a synthesized violin sound and duets between
the instrument and a Lyra-8 synthesizer.


About the album & its process, Gonzalez says, “Sonic
Creations for Violin and Lyra yielded experimentation with my
electric violin and a Soma Lyra-8 both separately and together.
Side A is mostly standalone Lyra. Straight up, a fair amount of
it is harsh noise.

I enjoyed tuning the Lyra, which was an excruciating process, to
create resonance and dissonance intentionally. Side B challenged
my ability to compose for violin and my ability to improvise. I
would plug my electric violin into the Lyra and mess with the LFO
or use other pedals. I love exploring how I can make my
instrument beautiful in unconventional ways, and this album is
exactly that.“

This is Gonzalez’s debut release, where near-industrial
soundscapes bump shoulders with radiophonic ambience. “Sonic
Creations For Violin And Lyra” is a stunning intro to a beguiling
new voice who transcends the “woodshedding” nature of the tracks
& elevates them toward a conscious whole.