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I have been working with Solange Joui for many years. Music is a very important common topic among us, but also we are bound by a long friendship and a certain degree of kinship. Solange, in addition to her musical studies, has a talent for education, especially with children, a specialty she pursued for many years.

As a result of all those years of experience, she composed and entire album of children songs, making music, lyrics, and borrowing some other from Alicia Morel and Federico García Lorca. I supported her by arranging the songs, recording them, mixing and mastering. That was some years ago, 2011, by that moment I was young and eager to work for the solely sake of art (it means, no money). It was fair anyway, since I was not too good. The musical work is fine, but the sound could have given much more. So now I remastered the whole album under modern specifications, improved mastering skills, and a more refined musical taste as well.

And beside that, now I think that the best we can do for humanity is to try to save the kids from stunting their creativity through excessive use of screen-based devices. In order to do this, music is the answer.

I would especially like to thank those who helped us on that occasion,

• Josefina Thayer @jose_fina_y_elegante in the violin,
• Paulette Joui @jouipaulette playing the cello,
• Paulina Rodriguez @imaquineria with her beautiful voice,
• and a bunch of singing children that I don’t want to mention so as not to embarrass them, since they are already teenagers

Special thanks to Alicia Thayer @aliciathayermorel who donated her beautiful painting “Las Bodas de Salomón” for the album cover.

It has been more than 14 years since the first release of this album, which I forgot very quickly in spite of being considered so good by me at the moment. It happens very often for people like me, who feel in comfort by travelling rather than arriving. Anyhow, I listened to it again some months ago and my first impression was that it was indeed a good work. I found it, as it is obvious, a bit naive in some passages, but as a whole it was very valuable. Second impression: awful sound. I think I was an honest artist in my youth, but a newbie as an audio engineer, so I decided to remix and remaster this album, now pointing to digital platforms. After a couple months I finally submitted the album and now it’s online. 

Spotify

Youtube

Full album, click here

This is the second in my list of favourites from the EP “Luces en tu Piel”, which anyway, contains only four tracks. But this is not only a favourite, but also a special one, because it’s the most experimental. It has of course some artificial and comercial flavours, but in the core, the song was written down as pure as it was when I took it from the air.

It’s funny to listen to it now, ten years later, when so many aesthetic concepts about music have changed. It sounds so 2010. Impossible not to remember music like MGMT or Empire of the Sun, none of them such an influence for me, but certainly good reference for the creative movement of those years.

I’m happy by knowing, and realising, that music isn’t so stagnant as it seems to be, at least compared with the huge artistic revolutions between ’60 and ’90. Moreover, and in spite is not my personal choice, I think that all that new urban music has come to refresh a little bit a mainstream musical scene that was turning itself around the same sound for decades. This same sensation I felt by listening to the new alternative music in 2010, a light of hope.

Well, about the lyrics, no sense to talk about that… is spanish.

Back in 2014 I was commissioned to compose and produce this EP by Aparato Raro, a chilean electropop band that had some success during the late ’80, with whom I worked several times before, making arrangements for their gigs, or even sometimes playing keyboards. This time they wanted to reborn from the ashes by releasing a new EP with a modern sound, but following the same genre they worked with in their best years (maybe in order not to disappoint nostalgic fans). So I composed four song, then we recorded them, and made a release concert. We didn’t get too far, though. We needed even more will that we had, more time availability and resources. Anyway, listening to this work now, my opinion about it has not changed at all: I feel satisfied. So much that I decided to upload it to digital platforms and now the whole EP is available for listening.

“Desiertos y Mar”

I would like to recommend my favourite track, because it was for me the most honest. Composing this song I forgot everything about commercial recipes for success, and I just focused myself in making something I consider worthy, especially about the lyrics, which was based on a documentary, “Nostalgias de la Luz” by Patricio Guzmán, and talks about the story of a group of old ladies scratching the sand in the desert everyday, for any hope of finding the bone of their relatives. It happens that some years ago, it was a military dictatorship in Chile, that tortured and murdered thousands in order to fight against socialismus. However, most of these murdered were just idealist and unarmed teenagers, all of whom had mothers that are still asking for their remaining, getting no answer from the current government, and disdain instead. World is unfair, we all know that, but I think that the only way to overcome that unfortunate fact is facing it. Truth is a bitter relieve, while Lie is a very sweet poison. Second best way to overcome unfairness in the world: composing music.

Documentary trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6VDlxFYmKg

images from: https://cinelibro.cl/nostalgia-de-la-luz-patricio-guzman/

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Album’s playlist on Youtube:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n3KiFKRTlOA3NXaxHRTBuTp28gnexmqYM&si=zW__WhE_tDqeSmGN

Album’s playlist on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/3fo8KLsSYzjw6UhrZmpvFI?si=EAn1HaifQRK7z3_9Y8frug

After an thorough remastering session (very necessary indeed), I have just released my album “La Aldea” to digital platforms. Back in 2017, this album was composed taking different song that I made and recorded during the last two years prior that date. Having all that work already done, I decided to finally merge all those songs into one album, which name was whispered to me in dreams during muy travel to Asia in 2016. Was funny to realised that, after all, all the songs told parts of the same history, a story of love, of new beginnings, longing for what is no longer here, and grateful for what it is. Makes no sense to tell more about this in English, since all the lyrics are in Spanish, and thus, their deeper meaning. However I wrote more extensively about that in the Spanish version of this post. Anyway, none of this is as important as listening to the music, so let’s get on it.

Spotify:

Youtube:

Once again we are gathered as Pajaro del Viento, for starting a new adventure through Patagonia. We have new songs and an entirely acoustic ensamble, as is traditional in this regional music, but naurally keeping a bit of the progressive soul, which is the essence of our band. @dequerusa behind the camera. Lago atravesado in the background.

Line-up:

@jp.aguilerast en acordeon 
@matiaspfuentes en Guitarra y bajo
@benjaminrodmusica en Piano

This music group in which I played keyboards, sang some songs and compose some others, was founded by me and a couple friends I use to playd with every time I visited that region before, i.e. Coyhaique, at the chilean Patagonia. That year was special mainly because of the pandemic, but also because of the fact that I decided to spend that period there, living and making music, since there was no virus in that city —which was completely closed— and thus going everywhere else was an unnecessary madness. Moreover, Patagonia has very beautiful landscapes and warm people, so less reason to leave.

Pájaro del Viento, which was the group name, was a project based on those special circumstances that gathered us there, in that specific moment at that specific place. There was no “studio album”, no gig or any presentation, only the music we composed and played just for the sake of love. And that’s also the reason why this recording is son meaningful in so many senses. It was a streamed concert from our studio to the people who could not gather to listed to us in a live performance, but furthermore, was a kind of attestation that we were there, and we did something special that we could never give to the world, except for this little album, now remastered a re-released.

Spotify:

This is the second release from the recordings we made with my band Pájaro del Viento last year, and that we have been premiering slowly and with total ease.

This fine and stunning composition from J.P. Aguilera is an invitation for us to walk in this time of deep changes we have been getting through, with full love and creativity.

“Acuario” is an allegory that narrates about this uncertain path that clears in front of us, which is the future, more mysterious than ever, but in which we keep our complete trust, a full confidence that, whatever it will come to us, will be the best.

I leave this work with you all, liebe Leute, already finished and uploaded. Sharing this with you has also a special meaning since it is, in some way, the final step in a long period in my life (or maybe not only in my life, as I am being moved by the same forces that move everything else). Berliner cold breeze is far away, now are the winds from Patagonia those that move the leaves of the trees around, so far from that old northern city, but speaking about the same however.

Are we really as distant from each other as we think?

Different cultures, different languages, but humans at the end, going through the same cycles, now clearer than ever.

The moon talks to us all in the same way, we’re the same marvel for her, anywhere, anytime. Its message is beautiful. Would we be able to listen to it?

First track: https://youtu.be/ep0x0SIVTN0
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr14CUdt44wBbhAAMvy5GZy3CSZXhU64W

Gone are the times that will never return. For some reason nostalgia seems to be something almost addictive for the people. What happens that we constantly return to this feeling that has actually a so sad meaning? Are not we supposed to pursuit happiness instead?

The lake recalls that old and lost memory, the day that Moon finally accepted him and swam in his waters giving herself in soul and flesh in such a way that the Lake thought he had her forever, that she will never run away (please note, in spite in german the concept Moon has a male character attached, we are gonna assume it as a female). What a great sadness to realize the mistake! The Lake saw her swimming in his waters, but couldn’t see it was just the reflection of her light over his surface. How bitter the tears are, when remembering all those illusions now completely shattered, tonight when no Moon or reflection are present, not even that ghostly pale light which announce love’s proximity in the dark and starless sky.

What if longing or nostalgia is no more than the overriding proof that we’ve been happy, perhaps not life long (because nothing is meant to be life long, in some cases, nor even the life itself) but certainly in the moments. Maybe we dive deep into longing one and over again because we suspect that there’s a clue to the happiness sunk to the bottom of its abyss. Maybe is the longing a kind of hope that the bliss exists, and it’s reachable because we’ve reached it before, and maybe is actually knocking on our doors in this right moment, and we can possibly hear it if we’re able to live and understand the moment itself.