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The kaleisdoscope

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Gala drop is synonymous of breakneck rhythms, some more exploratory than others, but they are always a prelude to a view that does not want to be single, but multifaceted and dynamic.

The " gala drop" start with three elements.
Nelson Gomes : No, we're five , but the band started in 2005 with me and Tiago Miranda who is no longer part of the group , because currently has solo projects . At one point, it appeared Afonso Simões on the drums and gradually more people were entering as the group was growing.

When you started the band what you wanted in terms of music?
NG: The band starts out as something different than we do now. The project was essentially poliform, something more of the music very environmental. Were free forms, an idea of song and sound mass over time, then began to feel some frustration with what we did, because it did not embody what we were and there was a desire to change the "gala drop" to something more polyrhythmic, mainly electronic, and more pulsating.

But, it is noticeable that the albums grow in terms of musical influences.
NG: There is an idea to work other ideas that we wanted to explore, but still we had not done. It's very rhythmic and polyrhythmic remains on all records and the idea of electronics also explores later the guitar that allows us to go more rock ambiences, more Balearic, more tropical somehow and include other musicians. It is a release of other more static processes that happened when we were only three, me, Tiago and Afonso. There was earlier a form of play and work very clinging to pre - recordings that made us static. Currently we have a band where all people take these little elements that we used pre -recorded which now allows us to be more dynamic, more alive and pulsating .

There has been a partnership with Ben Chasny in the third album, why you chose this musician?
NG: We did not choose nor wanted anything. It was an invitation from him in 2008 when we launched the first album. Ben is a longtime friend and one time he heard the record when we were all together and after a while sent me an email saying he would love to go with us on tour and in the same year in 2009 at the end he said he liked to record with "gala drop". In the beginning I couldn't see how, because the type of music that he does did not coincide with what we did, but it would be a pleasure anyway so the work appear. We developed 3-4 themes to work with him and then other also. The invitation was something spontaneous, there was not a goal, the only thing we said was that it was impossible to make a record in which he was all alone at home, that it was comfortable for him, that's what we tried to do, adapt our sound and include him, creating space to include his music.

But, your styles are completely different and even disparate musical terms.
NG: It was not very difficult, because the idea of the music was done by us, it was just be careful when we were composing these themes leave room for him to integrate into our own music and keep in mind what he was doing. And think that the objective was achieved.

Why called it "Broda "?
NG: It's a Cape Verdean band very important the early 70s, had a great influence on us. Also the word also means brother and in a way this is Ben.

In this concert they played new songs?
NG: Except the first and last song belonging to the album "broda", all the others are new. We played 10 songs, 9 are not recorded.

You are testing them with the public to then be recorded?
NG: No, we do not want to play old songs.

So how could you define these new themes? At that distance themselves from the other songs?
NG: I do not think they distance themselves from the others, is a confluence of all the records in one and the integration of voice. In previous discography works we did not had that element and currently there are many songs sang with Jerry, who is a musician who came at a later stage, two years ago.

When you want to release it?
NG: We are going to the studio in October and hopefully in February of next year it will be outside.

As a young Portuguese musician, you entered the world of new technologies, where people do not buy CD's anymore, they copy and share music for free, which was not the case 15 years ago, how you lackluster the future?
NG: I am a product of that generation, and I'm not a child. I have no problem with that. As a musician I live very badly. The advice I can give when you like it very much buy it , I do downloads , but do not buy all the CD, not all are good. Nowadays the industry is changing so much, for example, in the case of hip hop, editions are now not physical, nor is there record sales, they offer everything. This is just an example and will change more, fighting the downloads will always be inhumane. I think there will be a saturation, it will appear more formats, or other ways to get music and this is a much discussed topic here, maybe is due to the economic power we have, for example, Americans do less downloads, because they have a habit so ingrained of consumption that they go to iTunes to buy the album, or song for one euro is a banality. Undergoes thru changing minds, I do not know, I d not have a very clever solution. Cannot say that I do not do it, and if not for the downloads I could not known a lot of music that I know, unlike other, this way of getting music allows me to listen to albums that otherwise would be unthinkable to hear them, some are records so hard to get, if they were not people who had the bother of scanning and put them on the web I would never have access to them. Like African music with editions of 500 copies that most are destroyed and the remaining 100, 90 copies are in the hands of collectors and 10 appear for people like me who have a very huge passion for this music and lucky catch a record for 5 Euros and maybe are worth much more. But, I am a music lover; I listen to lots of music and know much more, so the download is a very important tool, because it feeds this obsession. The issue between the contemporary artist editing and all this mass of people consuming I can only say that I suffer from this and I'm not complaining.

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