Salon Kingsadore - Shining a light on Sarang Bang
Author: Richard Thorne
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| Photo: Greg Hodgson |
The engaging instrumental music of Auckland’s Salon Kingsadore has been variously tagged on the basis of their two albums to date. 2004’s self-titled outing introduced them as a five-piece with dual lead guitars. It attracted a ‘psychedelic surf jazz’ label, which has stuck despite the 2006 follow up ‘Hotel Azteca’ being rather different. This May will see ‘Mountain Rescue’, another step in the Salon Kingsadore evolutionary chain, released on Sarang Bang Records which is guitarist Gianmarco Liguori’s label. Just a few months back Liguori released his own second experimental instrumental album titled ‘Ancient Flight Text’, Richard Thorne talked with him about both projects.
Born here in New Zealand, but undeniably of Italian descent (his father), Gianmarco Liguori has played music ever since he can remember. He taught himself to play the keyboard before getting trumpet lessons from multi-instrumentalist Kim Paterson from age 8 to 11.
“I could never really follow what he was teaching,” Liguori is happy to admit now. “I couldn’t read music and had a real block with it, but he understood that and I think he had the same sort of background.”
Such was his ‘block’ that Liguori still doesn’t read music, and despite devoting most of his time to the process of creating new music, has never had any formal music education. Now aged 30, he got back in touch with Paterson a decade ago when he was thinking about picking up the trumpet again. That didn’t happen, but the two started to hang out and jam together, Liguori now on electric guitar, his instrument of choice for the last 20 years, Paterson on drums, trumpet and percussion.
Close friend Joseph Gubay had a North Shore studio where the pair played, and recorded their jammed material to tape, mostly just for the hell of it. The idea of working with others of Auckland’s older jazz elite on a project evolved from those informal sessions. The result was the little known but critically applauded 2006 Sarang Bang release ‘Stolen Paintings’, subtitled ‘Musical directions by Gianmarco Liguori’.
Along with Paterson ‘Stolen Paintings’ also included musical input from a range of other established local luminaries including bassist Andy Atwell, sax/flute player Brian Smith, piano/Hammond legend Murray McNabb and Miguel Fuentes on various percussion. Recording was mostly done by Darren McShane, Ligouri playing 6- and 12-string guitars, plus extra bass and synth parts, and taking composition credit for most tracks.
Work on a follow up to that album started soon after its release and ‘Ancient Flight Text’ is out now, in a stylishly designed fold out card pack that includes art by Liguori’s uncle and a scene-setting short story, in booklet form, by JCR D’Anvers, another regular collaborator.
“We’ve been friends since we were kids. He’s a real sci fi guy and came up with that story loosely based around the music. I just let him do what he wanted so I guess it was an extension of the music and how I approached it with the musicians.”
From that list of eminent first album contributors Liguori retained just Paterson and McNabb, along with D’Anvers and Darren McShane who recorded, engineered and mastered the album at his Earwig Studios. The production credits go to Liguori and McNabb.
“I wanted to condense things and concentrate on the things that worked better from the last album. I also wanted to experiment with more electronic sounds, just keep things more focused and go for a different sound,” he says of the reduced number of collaborators.
“I never told them what to play, just gave hints and ideas and basically they came up with their own interpretations, and most of the time it was on the mark.”
Paterson and McNabb weren’t both in the studio at the same time and didn’t get to hear the music in advance of the sessions, Liguori wanting them to hear it for the first time in the studio. Mostly he would create the skeleton and atmosphere of a piece, then allow it to be recomposed by the other musicians.
“I wanted them to take the ideas a bit further – you can get so far with your own ideas, but you need some more great minds to expand things.
“I could never really follow what he was teaching,” Liguori is happy to admit now. “I couldn’t read music and had a real block with it, but he understood that and I think he had the same sort of background.”
Such was his ‘block’ that Liguori still doesn’t read music, and despite devoting most of his time to the process of creating new music, has never had any formal music education. Now aged 30, he got back in touch with Paterson a decade ago when he was thinking about picking up the trumpet again. That didn’t happen, but the two started to hang out and jam together, Liguori now on electric guitar, his instrument of choice for the last 20 years, Paterson on drums, trumpet and percussion.
Close friend Joseph Gubay had a North Shore studio where the pair played, and recorded their jammed material to tape, mostly just for the hell of it. The idea of working with others of Auckland’s older jazz elite on a project evolved from those informal sessions. The result was the little known but critically applauded 2006 Sarang Bang release ‘Stolen Paintings’, subtitled ‘Musical directions by Gianmarco Liguori’.
Along with Paterson ‘Stolen Paintings’ also included musical input from a range of other established local luminaries including bassist Andy Atwell, sax/flute player Brian Smith, piano/Hammond legend Murray McNabb and Miguel Fuentes on various percussion. Recording was mostly done by Darren McShane, Ligouri playing 6- and 12-string guitars, plus extra bass and synth parts, and taking composition credit for most tracks.
Work on a follow up to that album started soon after its release and ‘Ancient Flight Text’ is out now, in a stylishly designed fold out card pack that includes art by Liguori’s uncle and a scene-setting short story, in booklet form, by JCR D’Anvers, another regular collaborator.
“We’ve been friends since we were kids. He’s a real sci fi guy and came up with that story loosely based around the music. I just let him do what he wanted so I guess it was an extension of the music and how I approached it with the musicians.”
From that list of eminent first album contributors Liguori retained just Paterson and McNabb, along with D’Anvers and Darren McShane who recorded, engineered and mastered the album at his Earwig Studios. The production credits go to Liguori and McNabb.
“I wanted to condense things and concentrate on the things that worked better from the last album. I also wanted to experiment with more electronic sounds, just keep things more focused and go for a different sound,” he says of the reduced number of collaborators.
“I never told them what to play, just gave hints and ideas and basically they came up with their own interpretations, and most of the time it was on the mark.”
Paterson and McNabb weren’t both in the studio at the same time and didn’t get to hear the music in advance of the sessions, Liguori wanting them to hear it for the first time in the studio. Mostly he would create the skeleton and atmosphere of a piece, then allow it to be recomposed by the other musicians.
“I wanted them to take the ideas a bit further – you can get so far with your own ideas, but you need some more great minds to expand things.
