November 2013 and while on a project in Epinal, France, we took the chance to head up the snowy roads of the Vosges Mountains to find Christophe Toussaint, a musician who builds and plays a rather unusual traditional French instrument called the Epinette de Vosges. A beautiful sounding kind of harp, he’s built more than 3000 of them…
During our recent trip to Almaty in Kazakhstan for a gig, we had the opportunity to record local musicians playing the dombyra! The dombyra is Kazakhstan’s nationally recognised instrument and is a long-necked, 2-stringed, acoustic lute but Kazakh band Aldaspan were the first to…
It’s not often you get the chance to meet admired and long-time highly-regarded actual inventors of musical instruments, but this was one of those rare occasions! So we headed off to France to visit the Baschet studio, just south of Paris. The famous Baschet Brothers, François and Bernard, both in their 90s, pioneered a completely new way of combining sculpture and sound in the early 1950s. François was the musician and sculptor while Bernard was an engineer, and together they worked on creating both original installations and inventing new musical instruments.
We’ve known guitarist Alejandro de Valera since the late 90’s, after we first met when he attended an early performance of ours in Paris. Specialising in fretless guitar, unique guitars without fret boards, which he custom builds as they are quite rare and not easy to buy, he became part of the team back in the early 2000’s, performing on a number of our projects.
We first worked with Marcellus way back in 2003 when, as a promoter, he brought us to Japan for an event he was organising. A truly mega-talented chap, it really is fantastic to have him as part of Orchestra of Samples. He sings on the track Sundown (That’s a Fact) for which he also wrote the lyrics.
Whilst in Istanbul this month performing our other film remix project at Ghetto Club, we also delivered two lectures about our work and Orchestra of Samples at both Istanbul’s School of Audio Engineering and at Bahçeşehir University. The university also arranged for us to film a former student on their roof terrace, the amazing tanbur player Korkutalp Bilgin. The tanbur is the very long necked stringed instrument usually found in Turkey, the Middle East and Southern & Central Asia.
March 2013 and we headed back to the French capital for another series of recording sessions at Canal 93, the venue in the Paris suburbs of Bobigny who are supporting Orchestra of Samples as part of their artist-in-residence programme.
From performing with Shakira to working on Bend it Like Beckham, virtuoso tabla player Kuljit Bhamra is one of the most influential musicians, composers and producers on the British Asian music scene. A pioneer of the worldwide…
As well as playing at the launch of her 2012 UK tour, joining Mixmaster Morris and Plaid, we also took the opportunity to hook up and record old friend Coppé, the delightfully sweet and eccentric Japanese electronic music producer/singer-songwriter, while she was in the UK.
November 2012 saw us play at the Agora Festival in Bordeaux, France – an amazing festival. The very next day we hooked up with a few local musicians for a day of recording, including with the wonderful cellist and singer-songwriter Agathe Issartier. Despite studying classical music for over 10 years in a conservatoire, she has such a rock attitude and usually plays the cello standing up!
Arranged via being artist-in-residence at Paris venue Canal93, we were ultra pleased that renowned French drummer Cyril Atef wanted to be involved with Orchestra of Samples, we took up the invitation to his studio and headed over to record a session while we were in Paris.
In early 2012 French venue and recording studios Canal 93 came on board the project, helping to part-fund Orchestra of Samples, offering us a place on their artist-in-residence programme. In June 2012 we headed over to the French capital for a few days of recording in their studios in the Paris suburbs of Bobigny, working with over a dozen amazingly talented musicians, some from as far afield as Algeria and Togo.
During a trip to the small Indian Ocean island of Reunion, where we played at the Sakifo Festival 2012, we got to taste real creole music and culture and had the chance to meet a couple of young artists from Reunion Island and the even smaller next door Mayotte Island, both of which are French overseas territories.
February 2012 and we’re in freezing snowy Paris! Chris invited us over to his studio for a recording session, where we spent a great evening together recording samples on a number of different instruments – from piano to a Bouzouki previously owned by Vangelis.
December 2011 and with the Arab Spring still in motion across the Middle-East and North Africa, we headed to Egypt to perform at the Disco Cairo 2011 event at Scharazad in the West El Balad area of the capital. Only just this year, the country has been through the Egyptian revolution but is still in it’s transitionary period and while we were there, there were still mass demonstrations in the streets and particularly in the famous Tahrir Square.
We just got back from playing at Electroblog, a fantastic little festival in Trieste in Northern Italy, where the organisers arranged for us to record an artist friend of theirs called Lorenzo Mos. Mos, as he’s simply known, is very much part of the local music scene there and also performs under the name Circo Bazooko.
Day one in Israel and we found ourselves on a rooftop in 40 degrees heat and no shade! We were in Tel Aviv playing at the opening of the Icon Film Festival, who’s organisers had arranged this great fooftop location over-looking old Jaffa and the port to record a group of very talented musicians. Perfect place to also get a tan, or rather severe sun-burn…
Over the last year, Orchestra of Samples has introduced us to some amazing musicians playing really unusual instruments, but the Boudègue from Southern France, made from an entire goat that’s essentially skinned and turned into a huge bagpipe, has to be the oddest one yet!
While in Brasilia we met up with artist, poet and all round wonder woman Marina Mara who organised a recording session with her Amazon goddess friend Andréa dos Santos (above).
During our time in Brazil for the amazing Celebrar Brasilia event we were playing at, we hooked up for a recording session with the incredible “eco-band” Patubatê (pronounced Patoo-bat-ay). For over 12 years now, the guys have been transforming and recycling all manner of old junk and scrap metal into musical instruments, from kitchen pots and pans to car exhaust pipes and truck suspension springs, all in a kind of re-cycling Stomp Brazilian style!
Behind the intriguing name My Real Name is Starship is the young and talented Daniel Marques from South London. We discovered him playing an open-mic night at the Star & Garter…
In June 2011 we travelled to post-revolution Tunisia to play at electronic culture festival FEST, being held at the Acropolium de Carthage – the incredible gothic cathedral in the ancient part of the capital city Tunis. Involving themselves in the…
We’re back in Brazil for the second time this year! Our first night in the country and only a few hours after landing we headed out to Casa São Jorge (‘House of St George’) one of the most popular Samba bars in the nearby city of Campinas, where sweaty dancers were tearing up the dancefloor and the band were giving it large.
In July we were in Paulinia, in Brazil – often jokingly referred to as “Paulywood” as it’s a real hub for film studios and the Brazilian movie industry. We were in Brazil performing at the city’s Fest2011 event and while there, the festival organisers…
