Nobique, One of the instruments of Alba Llalec 

Me and Marcelino in his backyard after new years...  

Norma Peralta 

Action shot baby!!!! 

Typical session with Mate on point 

Guitarist for Norma 

Alba Llalec Sessions

Alba Llalec is a trio that sings and plays only pre-Columbian instruments. It’s a father, Marcelino, and his two sons. They survive off of performing, giving lectures at schools and selling artisans at shows and indigenous events. Their origin is Toba y Guarani (de Paraguay).
The sessions went great. Four days of recording and editing.. Ha ha.. There was a lot of editing….!!! Trying to capture the true essence we recorded with out a click track which lead to some vary interesting time issues.. It was a blast though.. The music turned out great. I’ve also been blessed with tons of lectures and insight on music and cultural belifs from Marcelino who is definitely turned into a teacher and good friend.

The invited me to spend new years with their family and it was even more amazing. They live in the Barrio of San Jose, that is a place ill never forget. Imagine 20 square blocks of people sitting out side their house drinking beer and Mate until 7 in the morning with Cumbia blasting from every house and a war zone of fire works that never stopped for 6 hours straight.. and that’s just the beginning… They light off big paper balloons with candles in them that float around for about 5 minutes then burst into flames. It was amazing.. And to top it off I have a new family that I feel will always be apart of my life… cool peeps….

Norma Peralta

The Norma Peralta sessions came out great. She did a mix of folk and tango with Vocals and Guitar and she did some more traditional Coplas with voice and caja (a thin round drum). I set up in the everything in a apartment in down town Buenos Aires that belongs to her son Paublo. We managed pretty good sound from the rooms. All hard wood floors and pretty high ceilings. My biggest battles were birds and barking dogs that wanted in on the recording. We managed to cover 11 songs in two days. Some really good stuff. Both days were 13 hour sessions and Paublo and his wife were was nice enough to let me stay and stuff me with beer and pizza (typical Argentine food). I woke up at 8 the next morning and bounded out the final recordings until 9 and bailed…..

Tech problems: I’m having trouble with digital pops.. I think its and issue of hard drive performance. I cleaned up my hard drive and started recording directly to my USB drive and it seems to have gone away..

Abel