Bethany Barrett is a composer and sound designer with a deep understanding and love of synthesis.
Most recently, she scored independent feature film Rock-N-Roll Ringo (2023), which features the wavetables of the Waldorf Quantum to frame the life of a boxer. The first wave of lockdowns was framed on celluoid in documentary Neues von Zuhause (2021) with a continuous soundtrack highlights her love of both smooth Moog tones, and harrowing modular modulations on the Piston Honda. These films were both productions of director Dominik Galizia, who first worked with Bethany on the arthouse thriller Figaros Wölfe (2017), her first feature-length score.
Her work has likewise toured to the most prestigious of fine arts institutions. Hermagnificant data sonifications of gun violence for artist Hito Steyerl's Drill (2019), resounded in the drill hall of the Park Avenue Armory, NYC. Melifluous droning passages reminiscent of the hum of datacenters and underground art world smuggling rings accompanied Hito's This is the Future / Power Plants (2019) at the Venice Biennale, and SocialSim (2020) at the Centre Pompidou. More recently, in 2022, she debuted her first work for vocals, scoring Heather Dewey-Hagborg's Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera, whose four characters incorporated the syncopation of scientific verbiage into arias about genetically modified pigs (tragically, the pig is her favorite creature).
Her work also expresses her experience in the city of Berlin, where she has lived since 2007, organizing her first shows in her apartment. Her earliest bands opened for such acts as Les Georges Leningrad, and she frequently toured Europe, both as a guitarist in a shoegaze band with her trademark Fender Jaguar, and also performing her more experimental work with infrasound, using test tone generators and delays to literally play the room.
To this day, Bethany still performs live using an all hardware setup, no laptop. She is always looking for new projects involving sound design, including film and game soundtracks, as well as horror disco trio Pavone Cristallo.
For more information about specific projects, please see her Portfolio!
As Xena Vectra