Inaugural Recording on the 2008 Summer Solstice!

Well, it looks like we finally made it. It was a long journey, but finally we found ourselves back in the mountains, with all the equipment ready to make our first "official" recording. And it just so happened to be the 2008 Summer Solstice. Not a bad day to inaugurate a Solar Powered Music Recording Project.

The concert recording took place at a wonderful space in the garden area of the Restaurant La Alcachofa in Pitres. Overlooking the mountain expanse of the Alpujarras, we had the privilege due to some very special circumstances, of recording two amazing musicians, Rob Mazurek from Chicago and Guilherme Granado from Sao Paolo, Brazil.

They are the two components of the Sao Paolo Undergound quartet that actually made it through Spanish Immigration. Due to some absurd border conflicts between Spain and Brazil at the moment, two of the musicians of this project were not allowed into Spain. This left Rob and Guilherme in the difficult situation of having to face doing their Spanish tour as a duo instead of as a quartet.
But as the tour progressed they demonstrated their ability as musicians to take an unfortunate situation and create a new project that evolved and adapted to each new space they played in. Instead of being what one would usually call concerts, they were more like intimate conversations between two very interesting people using all the instruments that had crossed the oceans with them.

Now, what did cross the ocean with them was a good deal of electronic equipment that tested us and our solar powered sound system to its peak. This was coupled with the fact that we had to borrow equipment from may different sources to make this concert work. It all caused a good deal of stress in trying to make it all sound correct and in the end it taught us the lesson that we still have a long way to travel and a good deal to learn in order to make solar powered recordings in remote locations.

Nonetheless, it all worked out because Rob and Guilherme did their thing and played beautiful music that was all powered by the Sun on its longest dance of the year.


Listen for yourselves and let us know what you think:

Three Fountain grooves

Caminos con Buarque

Yellow Hat Rocker

I wish to thank the entire Wapapura team for pulling through (Ivan, Jorge, Maia and Sole) plus Ziggy, Misha and Richard for their equipment; Javi and Hersh of La Alcachofa for offering their space; to Mike Orlove for putting me in contact with Rob in the first place, and of course, to the omnipresent Cat Jary for making all of this possible.

And a huge thanks to Rob and Guilherme for one amazing and BEAUTIFUL tour of Iberia Magica!!!


For more on either of the musicians please check out:
http://www.myspace.com/flubio
http://www.robmazurek.com

Here is the Wapapura Team doing our thing under the hot sun:

Onwards we go....................