The Trouble with Flying

I don't know the band Orba Squara, but I came across them somehow this weekend through a nicely made map of their road tour from the eastern to the western tip of the United States. A closer look at their website, the images, and most especially the words, had me realizing that I had found something somewhat magical.

The Trouble with Flying is the name of their album and the site opens with the question "What is the trouble with flying?" which they answer in the literal sense with...

"The trouble with flying is that you miss out on so many little things along the way when you hop on a plane and zoom from one end of the world to the other.

So I could not think of a better way yo explore this idea and to celebrate the release of the new album than to get on a bus and drive cross country!

In our own attempt to "discover" America, we performed songs from the new album and previewed the CD for fans along the way. The Goal was to take the road less travelled to meet, interview and interact with people and learn that "The Trouble With Flying" means to them... and maybe discover a little about ourselves too."

And exploring this idea, they did! The website is designed to let the user travel from point A, to B, to C, and so on, discovering little crumbs of honesty along the way. There's a little piece called "If God had wanted us to fly, he would've given us airplanes." Also, a fog photo montage with the quote "Fog is just a cloud that had to come down for a rest." I still have a long way to go til I get to the end, but so far, so very good.

Edit: Interview with the designer, Jose Cobaco of Random Collective, here.

Birds on Wires

Reading a newspaper, I saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes (no Photoshop edit). I knew it wasn't the most original idea in the universe. I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating.

I sent the music to the photographer, Paulo Pinto, who I Googled on the internet. He told his editor, who told a reporter and the story ended up as an interview in the very same newspaper.

Here I've posted a short video made with the photo, the music and the score (composed by the birds).

"Sophie Roux" : Lady Danville

Airi and Melanie introduced me to this band a couple months ago, and this is my favorite song. I love how in this video, they're singing in a stairwell. It reminds me of how Kajogo and I would look for empty stairwells around school to sing together in because that's where we sounded the best.