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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Gala Drop
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 22 June 2011
Having first gained wider attention when they were flown out to New York by special request of Noah Lennox, aka Animal Collective pack-leader Panda Bear, for one of his solo live shows, instrumental Portuguese quartet Gala Drop were soon snapped up by NYC label Golf Channel Recordings. They released their ‘Overcoat’ EP last year, a standout from which was glittering psych montage ‘Drop’.
As presented by Twisted Licks, the band are now braced to play their first ever London show, and will be sharing a bill with Another’s Blood at London venue The Star Of Kings on 27 Jun. In anticipation of this, we approached percussionist Afonso Simões, wielding a sheaf of our Same Six Questions in a determined and not un-intimidating manner.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
Gala Drop started as a two-piece doing freeform drone-y music, and then progressively evolved into something different after I joined in to play drums and Guilherme joined as guitar/second synth player. We are now trying a new format with a fifth member on hand percussion. I think it’s becoming more and more funky, and hopefully makes people move.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
That’s a tricky question; I don’t think we gather inspiration for specific albums as much as we instinctively move on with our music. I guess everyone brings his own element to the table and everyone has his own source of inspiration, be it human, artistic, or of other sorts.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
For the last album, in particular, we started working around previously recorded backing tracks that had a rough skeletal structure, and then each one added his own parts. With the exception of one song, which was spontaneously composed by everyone from the start. For the new material, we are consciously trying to make it more of an organic process, where we are all playing everything that is heard from start to finish.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
I can only speak for myself, and I don’t know how much of a conscious influence they are on my music, but for the last year or so I have been listening a lot to Niagara, Hype Williams, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Brian Eno, Don Cherry, The JB’s, Jorge Ben & Gilberto Gil, J Dilla, Omar S, Paperclip People, The Rolling Stones, Lee Perry, Fleetwood Mac, Eddie Gale, Kyle Hall, Ash Ra Tempel, Orchestre Polyrhythmo, Bulimundo, among many others.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I guess I would just tell them to listen to the music without any pre-concived ideas.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
Our latest release is not really an album, it’s an EP, so we really want to do a full proper release this year; half of it it’s already composed and needs to be recorded. Then we want to put it out and then promote it as much as possible, by playing live.
MORE>> www.myspace.com/galadrop
