Originally released in 2008 this album contains some music that I always love getting back to. Even if I never really listen to it physically I dream about it quiet a lot.All tracks have been written and recorded in a really cool flow of consciousness and consequently have an immediate and pretty personal feel. My life long passion for Brazilian music guided me through these sessions and I feel like I really paid tribute to the masters of one of the richest and most beautiful music cultures of our planet. On the other hand I think I managed to create something that came out pretty unique and positively weird instead of just copying the giants.
Several themes and motifs of these tunes presented on the album are connected, repeated and further developed throughout all tunes which is a technique that I love to use very much. It's what I would call story telling in music by creating something that is more coherent and focussed.
"Goodbye Dancing Hello Goodbye" is probably the best opener I've ever made and makes the listener really dive into the sonic landscape of it all. My personal standout tracks are "Foundation Suite" and especially "The New Continent". The latter is the only track that I recorded way before the actual sessions began. For me it's a perfect example to demonstrate how I personally hear music in terms of rhythmic development, instrumentation, melodic and harmonic approach, surprising transitions, composed anthem like parts and a subtle production and sound design approach. The really nice solo take off near the end part adds to the musical drama. It's overall the most well developed thing I ever created and really means the world to me.
The whole album was made in a total underground fashion in my bedroom studio using just one microphone for everything and a classic Mackie 24-8 console to mix it all down. I remember when I wrote the melody to "The New Continent" I ran to the local music store just to buy a chromatic harmonica and learned to play it the very same day (just to record this little theme). Everything was very compulsive and intense.
"Qualquer Lugar" didn't appear on the original Sonar Kollektiv release because back then I was too embarrassed singing this mock up kind of Bossa Nova affair. It felt a little too personal to share it with others but that doesn't make any sense to me nowadays. So I thought it would be a nice idea to finally offer it as a bonus track.
Of all the music that I've written so far in my life the music on this album is the only one that I desire to experience once again in my life. I wrote dozens and dozens of songs and tunes that are part of this sonic "world". Unfortunately the album got very poor feedback and didn't sell well at all which was very frustrating for me. It actually really shocked me to see something made so passionately being so fundamentally ignored.
But as one gets older and hopefully matures a little bit I see things differently today and have no more bitter feelings towards any of these aspects. I'm just happy to share the music here on my Bandcamp with you.