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about

"Sweet Drink of Life" is the second single off Ricardo Gallo's forthcoming album "Un Mundo"; a multilayered and across genre project.
In this piece, a collaboration evolved first from encountering Yang Zemin, a Chinese flute player based in Yunnan, a former member of the Naxi Ancient Music Orchestra in Lijiang. After playing a few improvised sessions while Gallo was in residence at Lijiang Studio, Yang Zemin recorded a traditional melody called "Sheep on the Hill" encouraging new creations around it.
Gallo sent a demo of this track to Chunyang Yao, a composer, electronic musician, and singer based in Guangzhou, who responded with an intriguing text by Carl Jung translated and delivered in Naxi language with multilayered voices, textures, and effects.

This single contains three versions: The original full version, an "ambient" version with no beats, and an instrumental version featuring the flute melody.

The tracks composed for the album “Un Mundo” are sent to collaborators along with a couple of questions that prompt the contribution to the piece:
Will we be able as species to evolve and organize for the common good of life in our one world before the greed of a few speeds up our destruction?
Can the arts and culture make an impact towards a positive global change soon enough, or is its contribution too indirect and insignificant?
________

"Therefore on your journey be sure to take golden cups full of the sweet drink of life, red wine, and give it to dead matter, so that it can win life back. The dead matter will change into black serpents.
Do not be frightened, the serpents will immediately put out the sun of your days, and a night with wonderful will-o-the-wisps will come over you (...)

If you embrace your self, then it will appear to you as if the world has become cold and empty. The coming God moved into the emptiness."

From Carl Jung's Red Book.
Translated into Naxi by Chunyang Yao.

credits

released March 25, 2022

Produced by Ricardo Gallo.
Composed by Ricardo Gallo and Chunyang Yao
Includes the traditional Chinese melody "Hillside Sheep" 山坡羊

Synthesizers, beat programming, composition by Ricardo Gallo.
Voices, effects, composition by Chunyang Yao.
Flute (笛子) by Yang Zemin.
Additional drones on ambient version by Chunyang Yao.

Composed and programmed at bluegallo music in Queens NY and Lijiang Studio, Yunnan, China.
Chunyang Yao's voice, effects and drones recorded at Guangzhou, China.
Yang Zemin flute recorded at Lijiang Studio, Yunnan, China.

Mixed by Camilo Correa in Queens, NY.
Mastered by Carlos Arturo Silva at C1Mastering in Bogotá, Colombia.

Cover art and design by Yeye Torres.

Special thanks to Jay Brown and Zhou Qiao for bringing about these unlikely encounters.

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about

Ricardo Gallo New York, New York

Pianist, keyboardist, electronic musician and composer Ricardo Gallo has written for acoustic and electro-acoustic formats, short films, videos, dance, installations, multimedia stage productions, and has performed and written for jazz and improvisatory groups. He has published 14 albums as a leader.
He maintains a strong connection with Bogotá's music scene and is currently based in New York.
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