Omar Rodriguez-Lopez – The Clouds Hill Tapes Pts. I, II And III (Vinyl 3LP Box Set)

These recordings of three sessions dating from the years 2018 and 2019 and taken at the Clouds Hill Studio are now being gathered together as a vinyl 3LP box set. Part I features eight pieces, and Parts II and III six pieces each, which have been entirely newly arranged, produced by Johann Scheerer, and performed by Omar Rodríguez-López and a range of guest musicians.

Only very few songwriters and arrangers have succeeded in leaving their mark on several generations with their compositions and their performances. Rodríguez-López is one of these exceptional artists. Just hearing his name brings a shine to the eyes of aficionados of hard or virtuoso or cosmic music. Listening to his music you can feel it: This is someone who completely abandons himself to his art – and someone with an incredible amount of knowledge about the depth of possibility guitar music can explore. During the 2000s Rodríguez-López released an astonishing variety of solo works.

On these recordings the artist used pieces that had accumulated over the years. However, what has so far been missing is a release that brings together the pieces from that era. This wait now has come to an end for here are The Clouds Hill Tapes, Part I-III featuring 20 tracks that present his music in a new light. Rodríguez-López has long considered the Hamburg Clouds Hill studio his creative second home. He has known Scheerer for 15 years and are close friends as well as creative partners. “Johann is great at what he does. What makes him truly special is his instinct. This helps him find the most interesting sounds and make the right decisions,” is how Omar describes it.

Whenever the two meet, a shared creative process ensues immediately. This is just what happened at the end of 2018: Really, Omar had come to Hamburg as a visitor at the Clouds Hill Festival, but Scheerer invited him to use free studio capacity for a session in which to re-record outstanding pieces from the previous solo albums. “We got the band together, rehearsed for two days – and then we ran the tapes,” Rodríguez-López recalls. These original tapes can incidentally be seen on the covers of the three albums resulting from the sessions. The Clouds Hill Tapes will be one of the reference works in the musical cosmos of this unique artist.