sonomayrit - Blog

Panderu Cuadráu

2026-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Today I’ve built my first instrument: a Pandero Cuadráu (post capitalism edition).

The Pandero Cuadráu it’s a traditional tambourine of North African origin, traditionally played by women in several regions of the Iberian Peninsula.

Original Pandero Cuadráu CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Its name comes from the spanish word for the arabic bendir - بندير‎ (pandero) and squared (cuadrado). In the village of Peñaparda its played with a stick, while in other parts of the peninsula with the hands. It is also known as Pandera (from bendir too) or Adufe (also from andalusian origin al duff/daff - الدُّف ).

This square frame drum is usually made of pine, over which is mounted a goat’s skin stitched on the sides and sometimes in the interior seeds, chickpeas, small stones, or strings are placed to make pleasing sounds.

This edition is a DIY recycled and vegan version of it. It’s based on a model by Vicente Botella, but slightly different.

The building process is straight forward: just cut 4 pieces of wood of aprox 45cm x 5cm x 1.5cm and join them with 2 screws on each junction. Once the frame is fixed and stable, you can sand the wood to make it cleaner (which I haven’t done this time). Finally, roll tape covering the entire drum, with a certain tension (which will determine the timbre) on one side, and then make another turn perpendicular to the first. Between the two layers, you can decorate with a sticker.

In my case, I have decorated it with Anda Jaleo (a traditional song recorded by Lorca in 1931 but not related to the square drum).

It’s my first time ever working with wood and the result its ugly but somehow it sounds really nice, and I actually like the industrial look of it.

My idea is to build now an appendix to it that will generate electronic sounds while playing it accoustically, similarly to what Cinna Peyghamy does.

Synthlab

2026-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

Back in Berlin already for a few months.

Started to go to synthlab since a couple of weeks to work on my first DIY analogue synth!

Been obsessed for some months with Ciat Lonbarde DIY builds, specially the ones from Femi so this space seems a perfect opportunity!

I’ll work on a Rollz 5 with PCB’s from this repo (massive thanks!!!) as a first build.

Sooo excited.

Villa de VK

2026-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

Spent Sunday morning in Villa de Vallecas recording and exploring the town.

I’ve made some photos, interviews, I went to the mass and enjoyed the sun.

Mercado de Entrevías

2026-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Spent Sunday morning with Adri recording every chant in the Market of Entrevías + some soundwalks and general takes.

Was soooo much fun and every vendor was very collaborative: they loved the mics and really have showcased their best singing qualities.

General take:

End of the market:

Need to make something with the individual-chant takes.

Casas Bajas

2026-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Night walk and record session in my neighborhood.

Sad to see all the casas bajas left to die on porpouse. They sell them as land and speculate with it for years and in the end they build a 3 or 4 floor house.

These houses are historically related to the development of the neighborhood: they were built by hand from migrants coming from rural areas, most of the time illegaly during the night, occupying the land and in a built in a collective way.

Cerro de la Magdalena

2026-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

The mountain

Since childhood I’ve been obsessed with a small mountain that you can see from my parents’ house and that marks the limit between city and nature. I always liked that and felt lucky to have that view to escape the city.

This part of land is the next to be developed and probably this view will change a lot, not being anymore possible to see the countryside but more buildings.

Inspired also by a set of conferences I was reading those days about experiencing the exteriority, I decided to go walking from home to there for the first time with my recording setup, on Christmas Eve.

First adventure

It was more than an hour and half walking, crossing the last blocks of houses, the train lines, and a lot of roads to be finally in the edge of the city and near that area.

Just before arriving there was a crazy public storage for abbandoned cars from the city town hall, the sun was starting to go down and the view was amazing.

On this parts of the non-city there’s no one and the atmosphere is strange. I felt excited but also somehow insecure.

I went up a first small mountain (not the one you can see from home) but with a good view, and realized some slum houses nearby, where I could see they were preparing the meal for this special day. I saw also some signs on walls indicating Las Barranquillas, and after doing a couple of recordings I went back to investigate this name that sounded familiar.

![Walking](/src/Images/unprocessed/blog/cerrovid2.gif)

It was already getting dark and the wayback was long so I went back to my neighborhood and felt like entering back to life with the streets full of music of people celebrating tardebuena before dinner.

Las Barranquillas

Back home the next days I did some researchm and Las Barranquillas ended up being a large informal slum town for decades characterized by self-built housing, social exclusion, and later by intense police presence linked to drug trafficking and forced evictions.

They said that more than 5000 people came every day to buy drugs and actually some early youtube videos shows us a very different picture of the same road I walked the day before.

The settlement was dismantled in 2007 due to urban development and especulation interests, displacing most of this people to La Cañada Real, except some houses that resisted the eviction (as the one I saw), but planned construction was halted by the 2008 real estate crisis, leaving the land empty for years, until now that they are starting to build again.

I decided to go back with Adrian on the days after with more time.

Second exploration

On a Sunday rainy day we went to the place again and we arrived to the exact place were the settlement was. The constructions where arriving there already.

But what an impression and strange feeling to see all the evicted town after 9 years. Didn’t expected to have so many house structures, personal belongings and objects there:

We did some recordings on the site and finally went up the mountain I saw from the window.

Up there the view was amazing: on one side, the city ladscape, on the other, the lands leading to Aranjuez, Rivas, and the M40 road dividing everything and filling the silence.

We did some recordings there, and stay for some minutes listening thinking how all the view and the soundscape will change.

AM is dead

2026-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A few days after Radio Nacional de España unexpectedly switched off its AM broadcasts on December 30, 2025 after 88 years of emission, I scanned this band from one of the highest points in Madrid.

The spectrum is fairly empty, but I picked up a frequency from North Africa.

It was so cold and suddenly we saw a fire starting on one building down in the Albufera. You can hear the firefighters in the background getting to the fire.

CIES NO

2025-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

Went to the annual CIE demonstration and made some takes to close the year.

The CIE of Aluche is a Foreigner Detention Centre where migrants are confined under police custody while awaiting deportation, despite having committed no crime. It functions as a prison without judicial sentencing and has been widely denounced by human rights organizations for its conditions and lack of transparency. The CIE stands next to the former site of Carabanchel Prison, the largest prison in Spain and a central pillar of repression during Franco’s dictatorship, where political prisoners and antifascist militants were incarcerated and tortured. Its closure and demolition in 2008 sparked major controversy: neighborhood groups and memory collectives demanded the prison be preserved as a site of historical memory, but it was erased, leaving an empty lot and unresolved debates about justice and remembrance.

Every year on December 30th, a demonstration takes place outside the CIE to denounce deportations, institutional racism, and the continuity of authoritarian practices from Francoism to the present. Chants and megaphones break the imposed silence of the area, turning the site into a space of resistance.

I made several recordings available on aporee following the demonstration’s path. Here is a selection:

This recording is a 36-minute take documenting the final stretch of the demonstration, from Aluche station to the CIE of Aluche, and the gathering in front of the detention center. As the march arrives, protesters concentrate outside the CIE and raise their voices as loudly as possible so that those held inside can hear their support. Chants, shouting, and amplified voices fill the street, mixed with the intense noise of surrounding traffic. Public speeches denouncing deportations, institutional racism, and migrant detention are read aloud to the crowd. From behind the fences and barred windows, detainees respond by greeting and waving back, creating a moment of direct connection across the physical and acoustic boundary imposed by the institution.

This recording captures an interview with the spokesperson of the march conducted immediately after its conclusion, offering reflections on the demonstration, its significance, and the ongoing struggle against migrant detention.

Aeolian Arps

2025-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

Today Vova took me to the Castell de Sant Ferran and we recorded some antennas that acted as Aeolian Arp Scultpures.

The day and the view were stunning, we experimented with contact mics and geophones.

Last days here, will miss the city and the people I encountered here!