Quadro Nuevo – Mare

Description

Mulo Francel saxes, clarinets, mandoline, sansula, whistle
Andreas Hinterseher accordion, vibrandoneon, trumpet, flugelhorn
Chris Gall piano
Didi Lowka bass, percussion

and guests:

Evelyn Huber grand concert harp
Basem Darwisch oud
Rafat Muhammad percussion
Paulo Morello guitar
Tim Collins vibraphone

 

The Mediterranean lightness of being

 Music from the sea

         A sea full of dreams

 

Put on the sunglasses, listen to this music – and the trivial worries of everyday life are lost as blurred memories of a long gone yesterday in the distance.

MARE is the noise of waves that has become music.

MARE is the southern sea breeze that has always inspired the imagination of Central Europeans.

MARE shines in all the beguiling sounds of a longed-for paradise and smells of dolce vita, ripe lemons and yellow bikinis.

 

The Mediterranean lightness of being has undoubtedly always been the hallmark of Quadro Nuevo’s instrumental art:

Italian tangos, French valse, Aegean mythical melodies, daring driving songs along a sunlit coastal road, oriental impressions, Brazilian flavor and Neapolitan hits.

They all serve as a fun barque for joyfully improvised adventure rides.

Quadro Nuevo got the suggestions and inspirations for this on extensive journeys. Musical jewels picked up on the squares and on the shores of the South.

 

And this is what the musicians themselves say about MARE:

“Some of our songs at MARE come from shared experiences. Ikarus’ Dream, for example, was created after a concert on a festival on the island of Samos. We climbed the Kerkis, the highest peak of the East Aegean. From up there you can see over to the island of Ikaria and in the south to archipelago of Fournoi. Somewhere in between Ikarus plunged into the glittering sea on his flight to freedom, according to the old legend. The eternal dream of escaping from fate, washed away by the waves.

With the oud player Basem Darwish we travelled through Egypt, from the Red Sea over the Sinai Peninsula to Alexandria. This way we experienced the Mediterranean Sea from the other side. His song Café Groppi is dedicated to a Cairo meeting place for artists and intellectuals, which in its turbulent history has been threatened time and again by commercialisation and decline. An oasis in a storm.”

 

Andreas Hinterseher:

“We have been playing the old Neapolitan Canzone Torna a Surriento (Come Back to Sorrento) since our audio book version of Goethe’s Italian Journey in 2007, and for MARE we have made it even more expansive with an enraptured piano improvisation by Chris. For us, this melody stands for the longing for a distant homeland.

 

Mulo Francel:

“Beach anno ’75 – that’s what childhood by the sea sounds like to me. It’s our version of the then hit El Bimbo, which was played up and down the Italian, French and Spanish beach bars.”

 

Didi Lowka:

“Our new songs like Sun will shine again, Plage à trois or my Sambadi Didi, composed especially for this album, are like the soundtrack to a cinematic scene – sitting in the sand, salty skin and bleached hair, constant rippling of the waves and sending some thoughts and wishes into the wide horizon at sunset.”

 

Chris Gall:

“MARE is the peaceful and soothing sound of something big uniting different countries and people.”

 

Mulo Francel:

“After intensive encounters with musicians from the Arab world (Flying Carpet) and our own culture (Volkslied Reloaded), we turn again to the Mediterranean art of music making in MARE, which has remained a central characteristic of our band since our debut album Luna Rossa (1998) via Canzone della Strada (2002) and Mocca Flor (2004).”