Hi folks,
A couple of years ago, my friend Alton, who is an amazing amateur photographer and a bicycle enthusiast, told me about a dream he'd nurtured for a long time and was finally about to turn into reality. He wanted to film a documentary about people in his old hometown Mumbai who in some way or another make a living using their bicycles. And he wanted me to record music for the soundtrack.
This was a pretty humongous and ambitious undertaking for someone with no prior experience, and it took my friend a while to get everything organised, filmed, edited etc., but the result is a stunningly touching and beautiful documentary short. As for me, I ended up not only recording a number of separate pieces of music, but also doing the final editing and placement of the soundtrack. Having to learn everything as I went along, I can tell you those were a couple of very intense days and nights.
The film has had screenings and received numerous awards at film festivals around the world. I only recently saw the finished work on a big screen for the very first time myself, and now, finally, it is available online. If you have 25 minutes, turn up the volume, hit the full screen button, and click "CC" for subtitles in English, French or Spanish.
https://vimeo.com/171452889 <= it's on Vimeo so it won't embed, sorry.
If you like the soundtrack, search for "Wallas on Velos" on your preferred music streaming channel (Spotify, iTunes, Google Music etc.).
I have to admit there is not a lot of Kemper in there so I hope it's ok to share this... The direction the music took me didn't require a lot of guitar. But there's piano, various electronics, strings and bells, falsetto and throat singing, and Indian harmonium (contributed by musician Luc Acke).