MOHAMED SOULIMANE

Mohamed Soulimane from Arab Orchestra de Barcelona

on a cold day in november we record violin tracks with Mohamed from the Arab Orchestra de Barcelona. His parts will be layered and fragmented over the same track that features Selva De Mar and Max Wright, and in keeping with a disjointed and dislocated theme (and the fact it's cold outside) we decide to use an empty flat and play with mirrors to get layered and fragmented shots. we also get a great arabic solo from Mohamed for the middle of the track.

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JUANLU AND DAVID FROM CALIMA

we took a couple of days to drive up to Cap de Creus and Cadaquez to shoot David and Juanlu from the latin grammy nominated band Calima. cold and windy but amazing views and some stunning shots... and the sun came out right on cue. some technical problems made it hard work but it was well worth it. thanks guys!







JuanLu 'el Canijo' Leprevost - bass, composer (Calima, Ojos de Brujo)
www.calimacolores.es




David Porta Senz - voice, guitar, songwriter (Calima)
waterfly69@hotmail.com



Thanks to Chris and all at Restaurante Cap de Creus (www.restaurantecapdecreus.com / 97 2199005)

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SHOOTING SELVA DE MAR

we made a trip up to Breda, a town on the edge of Montseny Natural Park. Our friends, Sasha and Pablo, from the improvisation group Selva de Mar, have a workshop and rehearsal space there in the countryside. They play baroque Cello and Hang (an unusual metallic percussion instrument that looks like a U.F.O.)

Next to their workshop is a scrap metal dealer, and so we found an interesting location amongst the junk. Pablo also recorded some interesting sounds banging the metal drums and scraping bits of metal against the old machines. Wonderful material.

We then had a nice picnic of country farm produce bought at the local market. a great day out.




Pablo Wayne - hang, percussion
Sasha Agranov - cello

www.selvademar.com

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SENEN FLORENsA, DIRECTOR OF ieMED

We arranged a meeting with Senen Florensa, the general director of the ieMed - (instituto europeo mediteraneo) that promotes and fosters collaboration and coordination between artistic and cultural organizations to find out more about what is being done at a political level to promote intercultural understanding. We interviewed him about the work of the ieMed and the challenges that face europe and the mediterranean countries.

http://www.iemed.org/

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GAMBEAT DE MANU CHAO, RADIO BEMBA

Gambeat, Bassist with Manu Chao and Radio Bemba as well as producer with bands such as Che Sudaka, popped down to the studio and we made a plan to record the bassline for the misperceptions dub track on Rambla de Raval, in Barcelona.

He brought down his old upright bass "Big Lady", which has a long history (from before the II world war) and is covered in stickers and decorations from a life of street music and partying.

We also interviewed him about his experiences as a touring musician and longtime resident of Raval, the multicultural neighbourhood in downtown Barcelona.

thanks man!




(Thanks also to Kilim Restaurant on Rambla Raval for letting use their terrace for recording the interview.)
Kilim
Rambla Raval, 18, 08001 Barcelona934 41 66 88

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NO BOUNDARY ON THE RADIO

Descobreix el documental "No Boundary"

Ayesha was interviewed on Radio 3 about the project. you can also hear the latest versions of the tracks.

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MAX MOYA WRIGHT DE "Ojos de Brujo"

Ayesha persuades all round percussionist and random noise man to join in the fun. He comes round to Simon's studio to work on the material, as we will create a new track with him. The plan is a chopped up, spliced video, odd-time-signature floating track about finding your place in the world, searching for an identity. We map out a track with multiple layers of percussion parts that we can layer later in video, to reflect in the editing the message of the track.

Luis, Ayesha, Simon and Max meet up one afternoon on their motos to scoot up Montjuic, overlooking the city, to record his parts. Things go a bit wonky as Simon falls off his bike, and location plan A, the cactus garden, falls through due to fading light and (ahem) it being closed, but we carry on up to Mirador de Migdia, overlooking the industrial port, and shoot all the parts there amongst the trees.

Good stuff.

Max Moya Wright
Percussionist for Ojos de Brujo and Nitin Sawhney
http://www.myspace.com/maxmoyawright

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OKONKOLO TRIO

Okonkolo, the percussion trio we met during the journey, come up to Barcelona to record. Having sent them the music already to listen to, they come prepared with an arrangement of claps and cajon. A luxury...

We meet the day before the shoot in order to do a technical run-through (another luxury!) and simon discovers its quite hard to get a good cajon sound AND a good claps sound, using the typical mic position of a mic per cajon from behind.

We decide to record using the zoom in front of them as well, as a back up.

Amazingly, the weather in february is warm and blue skies, and we record on a beautiful terrace in Borne, overlooking the whole city. A very productive day.

Everyone feels great, but afterwards while having lunch we get robbed by some barcelona tricksters who distract us asking for directions while swiping sandra's bag, which had the Lumix camera in it. We lost all the photos from the session and the profile video, but luckily we were all taking photos of the shoot.

Finally, when Simon checks the audio, the simple stereo zoom recording is so damn good the rest of the takes are ditched right away.

The Zoom H4N kicks ass!

------------------------------
Pepe, Edu and Kike from the Okonkolo Trio
Percussionists (cajón, congas and more)
www.okonkolotrio.com

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