Pep Llopis - La Comèdia De Les Equivocacions (Banda Sonora De L'Espectacle) (1987/2026)

“Today’s composer is a collector (perceiver/receiver) of resonances — resonances which are present in the air, in nature, in the most distant ethnic echoes, and man’s most highly developed forms,” mused Pep Llopis in the late 1980s. He saw the contemporary composer’s task as transforming these resonances into what he dubbed “new forms of sound communication,” which were to be refracted and relayed through each artist’s own expressive modes.

La Comèdia De Les Equivocacions (Banda Sonora De L'Espectacle) is one of Llopis’ albums most emblematic of these ideas. The music was written to score playwright and director Juli Leal’s stage adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, which debuted in Valencia in 1987. Leal described the switched-on soundtrack as “a blend of lyricism and exuberance, of tenderness and mystery…a feeling that's both familiar and intimate, yet exciting and new,” thanks in no small part to the now legendary instruments that Llopis was using at the time, including a Korg Poly-800 and Roland's JX-8P and TR-505 machines.

Synth pop, symphonic rock, and American minimalism resound and rebound throughout the score, accented by echoes of harpsichord, chorales, and the classic theatrical chorus. It’s a resonant fusion that’s entirely Llopis’ own, and an expression unwavering in its singular fantasticality and flair.