Daniela Pes Charms the Crowd With Her Refined Craft of Ethereal Audio Manipulation

Daniela Pes’ complex manipulation of her vocals on electronic tracks created a vortex leading to another dimension during her 25-minute debut set at SXSW. Like most of the international acts featured at the Rivian Park venue during the festival, Pes brought a sound completely from another world. She managed to create an entirely new version of Italian tradition by looping drumbeats, synth chords and her own voice over and over again, all layered underneath the classic Italian ballad delivery found in her vocals. Each song lasting about five minutes, the music built on itself so beautifully and so effectively, it felt like we had just traveled for six hours straight through hyperspace.

Pes has created a sound so undefinable, it evades genre. In fact, her fans don’t care what the name of the box she checks says; they care about the music, about the magic and the alchemy that happens every time she gets onstage.

By the time her most famous track “Carme” slowly trickled into existence in a flurry of hands over buttons, the crowd stared mesmerized.

Unlike other sets we see at South By, the audience watched in awe, absorbing the content and avoiding any distractions from the music. No one really danced, but the angelic hum of the music hovered in the air around us, swallowing us inside of it. Her voice, soft and delicate, carefully creeping through the dense fog of her droning electronica beat so as to not disturb the serenity she created.

It’s not quite gospel music, but it definitely venerates something.

Pes’ voice fills the room with its melancholic anger, a desperation to get a message across through her voice and her rhythms, not so much her lyrics. She communicates with a third entity, one beyond our field of comprehension, through the shapeshifting of her own voice to create a textured playground of sound. By the end, you find yourself begging her to take you back to wherever you just were — but once she walks off the stage, one will never find themselves in the same place again.

Follow Daniela on her journey here.