III.
Everything was ready for us to embark on this third Isolation. Groceries had been shopped and both cars had managed to successfully find their way to the house. We arrived at Ticuman on Sunday, May 20th. Ticuman is a small town in the state of Morelos, Mexico. It has a population of roughly 4,000 people and its economy relies heavily on sugarcane production. Diego’s grandad had received a plot of land from a big supermarket company in Mexico that he worked for. He built a house there, later remodeled by Diego's father and some of his close friends. Since the house was still in good shape, it seemed like an ideal place to have an Isolation in.
“That Sunday, my parents and my girlfriend, Cata, had come to Ticuman with us. We shared a big meal with them and soon they were all on their way back to Mexico City. Marie, Fabian, Michael, Miguel, and I remained, ready to create music in 4 days (since we were to return on Friday morning). This was Miguel’s first Isolation, but everyone knew him well and some of us have formal projects going on with him. Everything was set for a great Isolation experience.”
- Diego
Everyone had brought all the gear they could, and we were in no shortage. Gear can be a double-edged sword. It definitely gives you access to an amazing array of sounds and textures to experiment with. Nevertheless, having too much gear can be daunting, as there’s too much to know to use it properly. But in an Isolation, you can do whatever you want, and that’s one of the best things about it. You can really explore one piece of equipment in depth or just go around and use everything as best as you can. There’s no limitation to what you can do, and that’s liberating.
Ticuman is filled with insects of every size, shape, and color. This particular kind, which we don’t know the name of, kept on crashing into the window of the living room. Although they weren’t the cutest creature around, we got used to them. They were probably just digging the music!
All of our gear was recorded through Fabian’s Universal Audio’s Apollo Twin Interface
Setting up for some can be tedious, it’s like tidying up before having fun - for us it's an excuse to experiment. During our set up we realized that the town’s electrical current was inconsistent. We even encountered some power outages due to overcast. We took our time to test how many devices we could connect to Fabian’s Behringer ADA8200 Expander and Mic PreAmp. We were checking the voltage to see how big our ensemble could get without static. Of course - jamming while we were doing this.
That night everyone had shared where they were in their life and how they felt about it. Everyone was asked to describe two vibes and two thoughts or emotions that they wanted to portray in the music. We used that to determine a collective goal for the mood.
How was your experience at the Isolation?
In Fabian’s words: "All of us knew what we wanted as if we were a single brain and it couldn’t have turned out better."
