From Carlos Bernardo:
“”Terre Mère” was first written as a guitar étude before it even had a lead part and later gained lyrics by Patricia Cano. It’s first been recorded in 2016 in Patricia’s sophomore album Madre-Amiga-Hermana. The provisory title I had chosen at the beginning was “Openness” due to the mood of the Lydian mode in which it’s been written and also to the guitar technique I used managing to use as much as possible the open strings in these scale-like arpeggios. And the use of an alternate tuning to make it fully possible, open tuning F-B♭-D-G-C-F.
“The guitar part’s cyclic movement inspired me to yet another provisory title, “Terre Mère”, in homage to the Earth and the Oceans. Then Patricia, in a similar way, connected this music with Mother Earth, Madre Tierra, Pacha Mama, and wrote these beautiful imagistic words in Spanish and translated to Quechua by Saúl Gómes Aruna
“Longing for my music partners in Canada where this song has been recorded and played over the last few years and aware I wouldn’t be meeting them anytime soon because of the world crisis I asked them all to play the tune over a guitar track I sent, record and film themselves so I could produce this 2020 lockdown video version in a moment Mother Earth is more than ever in the need of love and respect. It’s true that the world became quieter and by that I mean we lack of Silence more and more, it’s been decades. And the air and water became cleaner too these last couple of months with the forced retreat of fuel burning polluting noisy airplanes and other machines [and predator men, of course]. Are we going to learn some kind of lesson out of this crisis and get to live better in a fairer society? I sincerely hope so.”
Carlos Bernardo
Credits:
Patricia Cano: vocal
Carlos Bernardo: classical guitar
Luis Orbegoso: percussion & vocal
Kevin Barrett: steel-string guitar
Louis Simão: keyboard
Paco Luviano: bass
Recorded in May 2020 everyone is at home, [the majority in Toronto] except for me: I am at the Parisian banlieue.
Patricia’s vocals were recorded by Louis Simão.
Amazon River footage by Danny Cano
Mixing and video montage by Carlos Bernardo
