Music: Rodrigo y Gabriela Remastered

When you really like an album, you’ll play it the whole way through, and start it over again without realizing it. One of the very few albums for me is the self-titled Rodrigo y Gabriela album release back in 2006. Even though the Tidal version of the album is MP3 (not lossless), I put that thing on repeat. I’ve seen them live numerous times and even drove 100 miles from Los Angeles to San Diego to see them back-to-back. They are beyond incredible live and are best seen in an intimate venue. They’ll even let fans on stage for good portion of the show. They really feed off the crowd and vice versa. I encourage you to check their tour dates. They also have a neat backstory.

Avid readers will also notice I use many of their songs for testing. It’s mostly to evaluate the transient speed, clarity, attack, and overall coherence of a piece of equipment. Many of their tracks are conducive for testing of these qualities and for good reason. Have you seen how fast Gabriela plays? She developed her own style of strumming and knocking. She even fractured her wrist doing so. It’s incredible. When you’re listening to the recordings, you know exactly who’s playing what (FWIW, Gabriela usually plays on the left channel). They have incredible synergy together and I really enjoy their combined power in producing this beautiful metal/acoustic madness.

This auction is being held to benefit the campaign to secure the release of Luis Sauceno and Ilse Reyes, a young couple who were arrested during a police raid on their apartment block in Mexico. The raid targeted criminals who happened to be living in the same building as them.  Luis and Ilse are respected members of the artistic community in Zihuatanejo and are not involved in criminality of any kind. The couple continue to be held in a dangerous federal prison and all proceeds from this auction will be donated to the campaign to secure their release.  You can read more about their situation here – https://goo.gl/Lz02EN

The winning bid was at $9,000 USD which I hope was enough to help out their friends. I’m not sure what the new owner will do with this guitar as it’s akin to giving a mere mortal Thor’s hammer.

Rodrigo y Gabriela are such amazing personalities both off and on stage. When they announced a remastered version to be released on May 5th, I was first in line. Needless to say, I was blown away. The remaster is 10x better than what I’ve been hearing. Do yourself a favor and purchase it here.