Our Recent Work with Producer David Aglow
A collaboration leads to two releases.
A Video Posted Online Sparks a Journey
Several years ago, we were blown away by a cellphone video from Zimbabwe. The two-minute clip, originally shared by deeptrender2328 on YouTube, featured blind guitarist Daniel Gonora performing on a street in Harare with his 10-year-old son, Isaac, playing along on his homemade drumkit. In a 2017 interview Daniel stated, “People should not think we are destined to play on the streets forever because coming to the streets is so we can get someone to help us progress to the next level and when that happens, we will be going for shows.”
David Aglow, who runs The Vital Record, saw the same video and was inspired to travel to Zimbabwe in hopes of bringing Daniel's music to a wider listening audience. The result was the studio album "Hard Times Never Kill" by Gonora Sounds, which was released last year. We were excited to be a partner on the release of the digital edition of the album.
“As Daniel Gonora preaches his tuneful gospel, he does so with a hopeful heart and capable hands, all poised in the service of a greater good.” — Adriane Pontecorvo, PopMatters
In February 2022, we were in New York City for the Voices of Mississippi live shows that we were producing at Lincoln Center. One morning we met David for breakfast and he elaborated on another proposed collaboration: a project of flamenco recordings that he had made in 2015. David explained to us the rich history of flamenco in the region of the Bay of Cadiz and how his recordings were the first to document flamenco in its natural environment with top-notch recording equipment.
A Search for Authentic Flamenco Music Leads to a New Release
Earlier this month we released, "Bolinus Brandaris: Flamenco from the Bay of Cadiz." Our second project produced in collaboration with David Aglow and The Vital Record, "Bolinus Brandaris" is the culmination of David's search for authentic flamenco music — a journey that took him to southwestern Spain where he documented the continuation of flamenco traditions.
Documenting Flamenco and How It Sounds in the Moment
This is how co-producer and sound engineer Bradford Reed described his approach to the recording process used for “Bolinus Brandaris:"
“These recordings are a departure from how a lot of modern flamenco is recorded, a process which generally follows typical studio conventions like isolation booths, smoothed out dynamics, and artificial reverb. A portable setup with familiar gear let us prepare quickly, which was crucial as the performers didn’t usually play more than one take. It was important to us that the raw energy of the performances and the sonic experience of hearing the music played live got translated into the recordings.”
The resulting release features the recordings that Bradford and David made along with a 96-page book features lyric transcriptions, cultural and regional history, artist biographies, a glossary, and 46 photos.
"Bolinus Brandaris is the most important collection of present-day traditional flamenco to appear in decades." — Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
We hope you have time to explore our Gonora Sounds and Bolinus Brandaris releases. We are excited with how these two projects came together and how they provide opportunities to experience such vital music.