Gustavo Cerati’s relatives and staff have anticipated the details of the new symphonic album that will be released tomorrow

Yesterday, Tuesday, the presentation of the album that records Gustavo Cerati’s historic concert at the National Auditorium of Mexico, held in February 2002 as the kickoff of the tour of his album 11 symphonic episodesregistered in Buenos Aires a few months earlier.

Since it includes three other songs, the title is none other than 14 symphonic episodes.

Laura and Lisa, Gustavo’s sister and daughterwere present at the event where four songs were heard and the three videos made with virtual reality technology were shown, as there are no cinematic recordings of the show.

Before listening, director and arranger Alejandro Terán, sound engineer Eduardo Bergallo, graphic designer Roy García, manager Nando Travi, producer Diego Sáenz and video producers took to the stage. All told juicy details behind the scenes of the project.

In addition, Damián Amato, president of Sony Music Argentina, presented an award to Laura and Lisa, for reaching the millions of subscribers on YouTube.

Bergallo: “A perfect performance”

The introduction was given by Eduardo Bergallo, who began by saying: “I speak because Diego Sáenz has a very low profile and was the creator of this idea. I remember that I had known him for a few years, but when they were mixing us Comfort and music to fly He told me he had this idea and wanted to show it to Gustavo. I told him to come to Chile, which was a good time to talk, he traveled and showed him the two demos he had done with an orchestra conductor. “

And he added: “Gustavo liked it, but for more reasons it was left as a pending project. Some time later, after doing it Blow, there we could specify it. He was born of it, but I had no idea how it would end, I think neither you nor Gustavo. It was a really great moment and this is how the possibility of doing shows abroad was born, which at the beginning were not foreseen, but Nando started receiving requests for shows “.

As for the material it has now become 14 symphonic episodesBergallo explained the following: “A couple of years ago, Diego found the digital tape on which this concert was recorded, which was not specific to making a record but simply a document of what we were doing.”

However the quality was amazing: “It was recorded in 16 channels and was good enough to work with, because in general when working with old digital tapes there are usually some problems, but when I did the transfer everything went perfectly, without any mistake or bite of duct tape, which was a good sign it needed to be done.

A big moment in the process, the sound engineer specified, was when he heard the level of Gustavo’s vocal performance in songs such as Blow: “It’s awful! It gives you goosebumps. I remember calling Diego and telling him the way he sings was amazing.”

Bergallo gave another very eloquent example: “Everyone has certainly heard of autotune, that instrument that today is almost an instrument. In a studio recording many use it and in a live recording you will almost certainly end up using it because it occurs. imperfections. and it is good to correct them. In these Gustavo songs I didn’t have to correct almost anything, maybe a syllable in a song, the execution is perfect and not correct “.

Sáenz: “We wouldn’t have gone on tour”

Diego Sáenz explained the context of the original project: “I wanted to say so 11 symphonic episodes it was originally a television project and the CD was released the day before De la Rúa left by helicopter. In other words, a very ominous moment, but right there Nando got a call from Mexico to do a show there, even though we weren’t supposed to go on tour.

“That’s why – he added – this concert in Mexico is two months after the release of the album, at a time when there was no Spotify, social network or anything else. That’s why we arrived in Mexico and people didn’t he knew a lot about the. The impressive thing is that people were buying tickets for the National Auditorium, with a capacity of 10,000 people, without having a clue what they were going to see. They were just going to see Cerati. “

As for the differences with 11 symphonic episodeshe detailed: “The most impressive thing about the original album is that the concert at the Avenida theater was a recording of an album, so before we started we asked everyone not to clap at the beginning or sing upstairs. They just applaud. in American shutters, because we added it later and it wasn’t in the poster, so it was a surprise because at the beginning there were 10 symphonic episodes. But that’s not what happened in Mexico, and while we were mixing we saw people singing above the orchestra. “

“Another difference compared to the original album – he remarked – is that some songs go much faster, because the musicians in the orchestra weren’t used to hearing people clapping their hands and singing, so they started to prepare and to accelerate It is particularly evident in Man to water“.

In closing he defined that “14 symphonic episodes It was made with a lot of love, for someone we love. “

Terán: “A very well designed project”

Arranger and conductor Alejandro Terán recalled and said that the first meeting with Gustavo was in a car at full speed on Libertador Avenue.

“I was stopped by a car near River, it was Gustavo and he asked me what I was doing. I told him I played a lot in the house imitating the music of the B-class horror movies of the 60s. He told me to do it. with his arguments and I left. The next meeting was the first test. There was no meeting other than the one in the car, which lasted four minutes! “

“As Diego said – he continued – the live in Buenos Aires was not live at all, because it was controlled and we could stop and repeat if necessary. On the other hand, this show in Mexico was a real live show, the first of all this strange work, which is not exactly a Cerati album or a greatest hits album. It is a bizarre object that I have a great affection for. Everything went very well and it was a very well looked after project. “

virtual reality video

“In the midst of all this audio discovery – Sáenz said – Nando commented that within the Sony company there was Fede Kalwill, who had a virtual reality project and this is how we met the young VR team. . All this in the middle of a pandemic, like this one! That we only met at Zoom! First we tried with the theme Lisa And the result was surprising “.

Sofía Pérez, creative and artistic director, explained: “It was a proposal that Fede presented to me and it was quite challenging because it was something that had never been done before. I started modeling it through images and I did a lot of research on Cerati. . Then I contacted these two incredible guys, Gastón Carballal and Gabriel Krauszt, who shaped it. We also received a lot of advice and it was a great help to have Diego, Nando and Laura, whose contributions gave him more and more shape and form. made it more complete, conceptual and creative “.

Gabriel: “What we wanted to do was get into the head in a way that wasn’t figurative but metaphorical. So we created these different worlds that were in each of the songs, Lisa, revealing heart Y Root. It has been a fundamental job for my career and for all of us, so we want to thank everyone. “

mfb