Two years ago I joined the Ginkgo Music team to produce a 14 track CD with different acoustic artists.It took some time to get the Ginkgo vehicle into the right gear but I think we’ve gathered a first class line up.

One of the things I’ve found particularly satisfying on this project is the fact that the music is so performance driven. I remember our first recording session with Kate Walsh. She sat down, played the song four times and that was it: a real rock’n'roll moment dressed in singer/songwriter clothes (if that makes sense to anyone).

And Devon Sproule, who generously came all the way from O2 venue (where she was supporting Lucinda Williams) to record her track. I should mention we later added pedal steel guitar player BJ Cole on Devon’s track who agreed to give his time and playing in support of our cause. He also entertained me with tales from the road and I discovered he worked on some of my favourite David Sylvian records (David Sylvian and I once shared the same hair style).

Dobet Gnahoré and her guitarist/husband Colin came over from Belgium and we worked in more detail on this track adding percussion and even some backing vocals. Being a guitarist myself I couldn’t help noticing Colin didn’t make one mistake the whole day (how does he do it?).

Cibelle is another artist I was really excited to work with. We recorded her track really simple, voice and guitar. I love the recording we’ve done, it sounds really intimate and fresh. Great voice.

Who else can I mention? Martha Tilston, Nathan Ball, Alan Lacroix, Morgan Szymanski, Valentin Gerlier, they’re all great. I’ll write more about them next time. Right now I am looking forward to the session with David McAlmont who is someone I’ve thought very highly of for some time.

Best

Peter Larsen (producer, Tropical Forest Project: Ecuador)

About two and a half years ago I was teaching a piano lesson at the Conservatoire (Blackheath). My adult student (who seemed to have plenty of talent but very little application to his piano studies) showed me some publicity material for a project he was setting up. The project sounded great, but I noticed that they had no website so I offered to help, as web programming is another string to my bow, as it were.

Dominic gave up his piano lessons and I joined the growing team at Ginkgo Music, making lots of great friends and discovering some amazing music that I may not have otherwise found. Anybody that knows me will know that it’s not often that I say things like that - but this music is genuinely high quality stuff, whilst still being open and engaging.

Two years down the line and I’m in another piano lesson - or at least I’m in my teaching room at St Dunstan’s College waiting for my pupil, who is late. Whilst waiting I pull out my headphones and grab a sneaky listen to a track our producer Peter has sent me that morning, entitled “This is the Waltz” by Valentin Gerlier. I’m completely entranced, so when Georgina arrives (rather late and a bit out of breath) I just smile and offer her one of the headphones… “Coooool!”, she says and I tell her about the project and what I’m up to. I trained at the Royal College of Music as a composer and orchestrator and I’ll be adding some orchestral touches to some of the tracks on Tropical Forest Project: Ecuador - an exciting project for the summer! I’ll keep you posted how it’s going…

Ben