Oh Lordy, at last

Jorge Drexler’s producer is sending us a song tomorrow(ish), so they have something for us. Phew!

Plus we have a string quartet recording the backing track for Vania Bastos ‘The Rain Makers’ on Friday the 3rd of July; Ben is hard at work as we speak on this.

So we may have ALL recorded material in end of week commencing 6th July - how cool is that?

I’ll keep you posted

Ooh look! While having a bit of a rummage around the internetty thing, I came across an article on Morgan Szymanski in November 2008’s edition of Classical Guitar magazine. Lo and behold, we get a mention: http://www.morganszymanski.co.uk/content/news/featured-artist-classical-guitar-magazine-november-2008/

Thanks very much to Valentin Gerlier, whose track This Is the Waltz adds a bit of 3:4 to the mix on Tropical Forest Project: Ecuador.  He’s name-checked us with considerable enthusiasm on the front page of his site http://www.valentingerlier.com

Well have we got a crazy 3 months coming up. In readiness for promoting the album we’re making a short film/documentary about our story so far, featuring some of the contributing musicians along with footage of Ecuador we’re hoping to record on a trip we’re planning; we’d to visit some of the forests we’re helping to protect and we’re taking a sound-recordist to capture the noise, buzz and hoo-ha for the album. (We’re hoping to involve some rather splendid and well-known people in our journey so keep checking back for news on our success - eek.) Next up, our website’s about to get an upgrade to start accepting donations and pre-prders for the album AND we oh-so-know we’ve gotta get into Twitter and do more with our Facebook & MySpace pages. Finally, it’s all hands to the pump on getting the tracks mixed & mastered along with all the designwork for our beautiful, gorgeous absolutely-must-have booklet to accompany the album.

I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it.

Great news!  Jorge Drexler confirmed this week that he wants to contribute a track to the album, and his producer is searching for an alternate take of one of his songs for us.  So (provided they find one) the line-up for Tropical Forest Project: Ecuador is complete.

Jorge is a poetic and politically engaged lyricist.  In 2004 he became the first Uruguayan to win an Academy Award for composing the song “Al Otro Lado del Río” (Across the River) for the soundtrack to The Motorcycle Diaries, a wonderful biopic about an early episode in the life of Che Guevera.  Though Drexler himself sang the song on the movie soundtrack, it was performed by Antonio Banderas and Carlos Santana at the Academy Awards ceremony.  His latest album Cara B (2008) received a nomination for Best Latin Pop Album at the 2009 Grammy Awards.

We have a few additional instrumental parts and finishing touches to put on the album before it can be mixed & mastered - I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve had an email from our producer, Peter Larsen, saying he’s just added some more elements (cello, violin and vocal harmony) to Martha Tilston’s track, with 2 of her musicians.

In typically understated Scandinavian style he was “mildly blown away by their musicianship” and how they “took the track from the universe of amazing, to even more amazing”‘.

Officially his favourite song… this week!

What a crazy Dane.

I am always a little apprehensive about recording new Ginkgo artists, partly because I don’t know them and partly because I worry my game is up, they’ll see me as I am, a fraud, a scheister who can’t get it together.

Maybe it’s all because I am Danish.

The Nextmen turned up on my doorstep, all 3 of them. 2 blokes and a girl, I figured, in a fight against me they would definately win but since we were here to make music I quickly forgot about that.

They were wildly enthusiastic and friendly, me a little nervous. I made them a cup of tea and after disposing of the wet tea bags in the bread container I showed them the flat. They walked straight into the living room and said hello to my wife Mel who made fun of their names and asked them if they were American (good to have a funny wife, it creates an easy vibe).

Time to make music and was blown away by their level of musicianship. We recorded all 3 of them at the same time live in my bedroom (idea for album title: live from the bedroom!!!) Brad on Fender Rhodes, Dominic on acoustic guitar and Zarif lead vocals. We had some problems with the Fender Rhodes, it did’nt cut through properly but we went ahead with the recording anyway, my attitude was a bit like, “hey it’s rock’n'roll” and I was keen to get something recorded.  They nailed the track first take and after fixing a few rhodes parts afterwards it was time for another cup of tea. I had a good chat with Brad (chat with Brad is a good rhyme), he and Dominic are also producers. Sometimes putting 3 producers in the same room can be a recipe for disaster and again I was amazed how well we were able to communicate without the typical schoolyard competition, I really liked all 3 of them a lot. Zarif is an incredible vocalist and in her field probably one of the best I’ve worked with.

And so it was time to finish, they left and I cleared up. It took me 3 hours to set up for the session and one hour to take it all down. Weird how it seems easier to undo something than to do it - it took several years to build the twin towers and a couple of hours to tear them down which is actually quicker than it took for me to setup my studio for the Nextmen.

On Friday I am going to my good friend Andreas’ studio to put the rhodes through a guitar amp and record it back into the track, then off to have a drink.

Hope this was interesting.

We’re delighted to announce that The Nextmen have been given the go ahead by Universal Music to record a new acoustic version of one of their songs for Tropical Forest Project: Ecuador.

The Nextmen, aka Dom Search and Brad Baloo, have been producing, mixing and DJ-ing all across the world. Influenced by their eclectic DJ sets, their current and third studio album, ‘This Was Supposed To Be The Future’, revels in everything from reggae, dancehall and hip hop to funk, soul and rare groove.

The Nextmen were recommended to me by palaeoclimatologist Professor David Beerling back in June at the Hay-On-Wye Festival of Literature. David, whose book The Emerald Planet examines the role evolving plants had in shaping the atmosphere during the last 3.5 billion years, gave a brilliantly lucid and beautifully illustrated talk entitled Fossil Forests and Climate Crisis, following which I asked him, over a jug of Pimms, who he would like to see on our Ecuador album. The rest, as they say, is history… or soon will be.

Recently Martha Tilston recorded for us a beautiful new song inspired by Tropical Forest Project: Ecuador and our mission to halt deforestation. We thought is was stunning, but she was not finally convinced (ah… perfectionists!) and so very generously Martha yesterday returned to our producer’s studio yesterday to record a new version of Good World, an equally beautiful song originally recorded for her last album ‘Of Milkmaids and Architects’. Thank you, Martha!

We can also report that last week classical guitarist Morgan Szymanski recorded Prelude No.1 by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. It was our producer Peter Larsen’s first experience of working with a classical musician and it went swimmingly, by all accounts.

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…