Choose artist...
Home   >   Projects

Projects

Artist: Rodrigo y Gabriela
Projects per page:
Rodrigo y Gabriela:

Area 52

ATO Records is excited to announce the release of the new studio album by Rodrigo y Gabriela. Entitled Area 52, the record was produced by the legendary Peter Asher and will come out on January 24, 2012. Area 52 contains nine of Rod and Gab's favorite songs from their own catalogue re-arranged and re-configured for a 13-piece Cuban orchestra comprised of some of Havana's finest young players, collectively known as C.U.B.A. It's Rodrigo y Gabriela's first recorded collaboration with another group of musicians. 

Area 52 was mixed by Rafa Sardina, one of the leading studio musicians in the Latin music world, and arranged by London-based pianist, composer and arranger Alex Wilson. Recording took place in the Miramar district of Havana, Cuba, at Abdala Studios, founded by the Cuban folk hero Silvio Rodriguez, as well as at Rod and Gab's studio in Ixtapa, Mexico. Other players on the record include: bassist Carles Benavent (Paco De Lucia, Chick Corea, Miles Davis), drummer John Tempesta (The Cult, Testament, White Zombie), sitarist Anoushka Shankar and drummer Samuel Formell (Los Van Van).

"The album is called Area 52 because we felt like Mulder and Scully approaching this -- it was just a crazy idea, to see if a big Cuban band could play our music, a step in the dark. We knew it was out there, everyone has heard of Area 51, but we wanted to take it a little further," Rodrigo says. "We saw it as a trip into the unknown, an experiment," he continues. "Okay we knew the producer, and had spoken to the arranger on Skype; but we didn't know the musicians or the studio, or Cuba for that matter."