House of Waters

“PLANETARY COALITION” – FULL ALBUM (HD)

Here it is! A full album-excerpts video, which helps visualize the regions covered by the varied musical styles and instruments, and gives a glimpse of the musicians during the recording process.

“It started with a lone, handwritten sentence on a notepad, describing a musical vision: “An ethnically flavored collective of musicians from all over the world, driven by acoustic guitar and bringing together inspirational melodies, in-depth improvisation and the passion of the musical styles of Gypsy, Middle Eastern, Indian, Latin, East Asian, Mediterranean, Balkan/Eastern European, African and other indigenous lands.”

“The reality: coordinating over two-dozen musicians from five continents.”

“Yet despite the numerous logistical challenges, Planetary Coalition has been guided by a single hope: that by weaving the threads that connect musical expressions with regional identities, we can bridge the gap between diverse cultures and people, and increase awareness of the ecological and social issues facing the planet, our island in the sky.” – Alex Skolnick

Video compiled and edited by Maddy Samaddar (NOMAD 9 DESIGN)

Album Excerpts and Preview Part 2 – tracks 1 to 4

A short video with glimpses of the first four tracks of the album, including two time Juno-award winning Indian ghazal/folk style as well as classically trained singer Kiran Ahluwalia; also, Turkish kanun player Tamer Pinarbasi along with other members of New York Gypsy All Stars; members of the group Raza Truncka from Salto playing Argentine indigenous drums and members of the Brooklyn-based world music group House of Waters. Stay tuned till the end of the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87ncMQRiX44

(Photography and videography of the artists in-studio are by Tom Couture and Maddy Samaddar – who has also done the editing and album artwork. A separate page will be put up to list all other images used, including film clips with copyrights, permissions and detailed credits for all the regional, political and landscape photos used in this video.)

A glimpse of some of the sounds and textures of Planetary Coalition

This video consists of a few excerpts from live performances giving an idea of the sounds and texture of the music of Planetary Coalition.

Founded by guitarist Alex Skolnick, the group includes a core team of musicians and artists in New York and will include special guests from across the world. The final recording will constitute of other international musicians from various countries, as explained in detail in our Welcome video.

Planetary Coalition will be making its debut recording through ArtistShare® To support this project go to: http://www.artistshare.com/v4/project…

The beautiful artwork and graphics of Planetary Coalition, as well as compilation of its welcome video and others available for purchase on artistshare, is made by the incredibly talented architect and landscape architect Maddy Samaddar (of Nomad 9 Design, New York & Open Building Research, Italy,) who has worked on over 80 design projects in 15 countries in five continents. She will also be co-ordinating the project’s artwork and its ecological and environmental aspects.

Thank you for your interest and we hope you’ll join us in this process, and on this musical journey with Alex Skolnick and his musical guests.

As described in our welcome video, you can contribute through your ideas, essays, artwork, photos, postcards as well. An address will be placed soon for receiving mail on this site.

For those who want to help fund the project through small or large contributions go to: http://www.artistshare.com/v4/projects/experience/325/439/1/6

Planetary Coalition: a world music project by Alex Skolnick. An artistshare fan-funded project. (Artwork of this poster © 2013 Maddy Samaddar Nomad 9 Design.

Thanks for the Union Square turnout!

Thank you for that great turnout in Union Square for the Make Music NY, New York’s largest free outdoor music festival, and Guitar World and NYC Guitar School’s “Mass Appeal: Guitars on June 21” event.