Meridian Brothers

The genre-crossing eight track album is the first of a trilogy, inspired by a Colombian local legend Jaime Llano Gonzalez, a Hammond organist famous for playing traditional Colombian music such as Pasillos, Bambucos, Cumbias, and foreign rhythms such as foxtrots or waltzes, in an ambient style.

"The album was written as an ambient record but at the same time searching for an image of a impossible virtuoso organist" says Eblis Javier Alvarez Vargas, the man behind The Meridian Brothers. Gonzalez's style of playing traditional rhythms on the Hammond organ inspired Vargas to build a whole synthesizer ensemble simulating this sound and developing intricate textures and counterpoint. This style of play is often impossible for a single organist, giving rise to Vargas' description of the genre as "impossible organ music".

Requiring some digital sequencing techniques to achieve the result in the album, Vargas also chose to utilize an acoustic rhythm section, including acoustic bass, percussion or drums, also adding electronic drums and samplers.

Album opener 'Vertigo' is streaming ahead of the release. Inspired by Gyorgy Ligeti's piano studio of the same name, the track simulates an eternal fall in melody, with the listener feeling the effects of vertigo. Elsewhere on the record 'Contienda' is inspired an Anibal Velazquez tune, called 'Kung-Fu', 'Ilidio' is inspired by a vintage romantic bolero, 'Lágrima' and 'Amargura' are based on traditional rhythms Bambuco and Pasillo, and 'Cazador', a fast Cumbia, was inspired by a poem about a hunter and his daily habits.