Marvellous news on the recording front:

David McAlmont emailed me some lyrics recently - he has written a song for Tropical Forest Project: Ecuador. The song is written from the point of view of a Mountain Tapir in captivity, remembering the sounds of the forest. The Mountain Tapir, currently an endangered species owing to deforestation and habitat destruction, is a Latin American mammal with a very strange snout. David has been exploring lyrics that are focused more on storytelling than on personal feelings, and we can’t wait to hear this new song.

We are also in discussion with Ecuadorian singer Margarita Laso who has agreed to record for the project and is very excited. Margarita is the first Ecuadorian artist on the album, and one of the things for us to work out is how to record her (all the songs to date have been recorded by our producer Peter Larsen at his studio in South London). Many thanks to the Ecuadorian Embassy who put us in contact with Margarita. Welcome, Margarita.

Mexican classical guitarist Morgan Szymanski recently came over to Ginkgo HQ to play us a Prelude by Heitor Villa-Lobos, a Brazilian composer much inspired by the Amazon rainforest, which he will be recording for the the album. Morgan has been winning awards for his playing and was recently featured in Gramophone Magazine’s “One to Watch” slot.

Meanwhile, last week a few of us from the Ginkgo team were at the wondrous Hay Festival in Wales, where many of the authors appearing this year were environmentalists. Amongst those I met to discuss the project, one of the high points was meeting palaeoclimatologist Professor David Beerling over a jug of Pimms. His account of the role plants (yes, forests in particular) have played in sculpting planet Earth’s atmosphere was the most lucid and beautifully illustrated I have seen. You may recall that Ginkgo is the oldest surviving genus of trees - Ginkgos developed before dinosaurs (around 200 million years ago). Here at Ginkgo we have a soft spot for palaeontologists…