Valentino: synchronicity or coincidence?

There were two striking moments in the last week which gave us a strong sense of the peculiar phenomenon of synchronicity.

One was an interview which we did with Marjolijn Keijser. She is a journalist from the New York based magazine and website Grungecake (www.grungecake.com ) This lifestyle platform has its central focus point on music, but is interested in a whole range of items: movies, design, art, architecture etc..  The other was a visit to the Adani&Wolf soundlab by Peter Hoeks, a journalist as well, working for a producers magazine named Interface (www.interface.nl ) These two visits led to a rather remarkable event.

During both interviews, held on the same morning, the conversation led strangely enough in the same direction: a track of our new album Electric Dandy, named ‘Valentino’.

On one of the questions coming from the Grungecake reporter, about the influence of books and literature on our work, we revealed that the song Valentino was inspired by the book What is the what written by Dave Eggers in 2006.

What is the What is an astonishing, eye-opening, and heartbreaking book about Valentino Achak Deng a so called ‘lost boy’ and his struggles to escape from war-torn Sudan. What is the What tells a devastating story but never plays for sympathy. Instead, the hope, complexity, and tragedy of the situation take center stage.

Highly impressed by this book we decided as a sort of a tribute, to name a song of ours Valentino. Off course we didn’t know that the song was also one of miss Keijsers favourite’s of the album.

With the track Valentino we made a long and interesting journey. Originally it all started out with a flamenco guitar jam under the Andalucian sun during our Spanish adventure in 2010. This guitarist, who we had met via a mutual acquaintance, was only around for one day. So, we had to create quickly a musical ‘bed’ for him to sprinkle his beautiful flamenco guitar notes on. Valentino was born.

Strangely enough, in the final song the guitar only appears in a strong riff in the outro of the track. That’s how it goes sometime with music: the flamenco guitar was really inspiring but deserved a less stringent framework. We found out that the groove and chords we’d made found a bigger challenge in a different musical approach. But for sure that his beautiful guitar input will show-up in some future Adani&Wolf material!

So Valentino evaluated differently, also due to the wonderful contribution of saxophone player Benjamin Herman, the rich cinematic layered strings and the ultimately added guitar twangs and ‘Morricone’ counterpoints.

It was for all these musical ingredients that Peter Hoeks the journalist of Interface was very much interested in Valentino on a music production level. How did the song arise? How was it crafted? What kind of instruments and music gear were used in the studio? We talked for a long time about these subjects, but there are so many tips and tricks on the process to share, that Peter and Adani&Wolf decided there and then that this interview deserved a follow up. Valentino will be put under a microscopic production and songwriting analysis. All the details and aspects of that specific song will come to light and will be shared in an extra article in the Interface magazine.

So on this particular morning both conversations ended up with the same topic: Valentino. Coincidence? Synchronicity? Who knows… For us it was clear that we had found the first subject of an idea we had in our minds for a long time: to produce special workshop videos broadcasted on the Adani&Wolf Youtube channel. So ‘the making of Valentino’ will be the first video in a series of little vodcasts about the sonic crafts and skills of Adani&Wolf and their specific sound and flavour. Watch out for this revealing footage!

In this blog furthermore a free download of a specially mixed podcast by Adani&Wolf. This podcast is the first of three in a series: The Electric Dandy album presentation – The Supperclub 27-10-2012. Number one: ‘The Early Evening’. Download here: