{"product_id":"or-sobre-blau-making-friends-lp","title":"Or Sobre Blau - Making Friends (LP)","description":"\u003cp\u003eOr Sobre Blau\u0026#39;s \u0026#39;Making Friends\u0026#39; on Stroom.\u0026quot;Andreu G. Serra and Kiran Leonard first met in Lisbon nine years ago, arriving in the city within weeks of each other by chance. Living together in a crumbling warehouse in Alto São João, they recorded a series of improvisations that became The Piri Piri Samplers (Memorials of Distinction, 2019): Serra’s abrasive, tape-warped guitar lines colliding with Leonard’s stark, pedal-free counterpoint. They played a single gallery show, left Lisbon that summer, and then spent almost a decade living in different countries.When Stroom reissued The Piri Piri Samplers in 2024, the label suggested the duo make a new record. At first, it seemed impossible: Leonard was in London, Ubaldo in southern Catalonia, and their attempts at long-distance recording quickly collapsed into nothing. But the near-failure sparked something. Leonard travelled to Catalonia to restart the process in person; soon after, Serra moved to South London, and the pair began meeting every week.The result is Making Friends: a richer, more expansive album built over six months. Where The Piri Piri Samplers was assembled from raw improvisations, Making Friends transforms fragments into fully realised songs, weaving together nylon and steel-string guitars, piano, drums, bells, samplers and more. For the first time, Serra and Leonard sing together, each in his own language - Catalan and English - sometimes translating one another in real time.Musically, Making Friends still carries the jagged dissonance and free-blues spirit of the duo’s earlier work, while opening outward toward everything from emo and blown-out noise to fractured chamber pop. There are only three guests on the album, and they are worth mentioning: Rachel Leonard and Antonia Serra (the musicians\u0026#39; mothers) on the seventh tune, and the American poet Pete Simonelli (of Enablers) appears on Top of Duboce \/ Tyne Bridge Crossing, one of the album’s two sprawling centerpieces.At its heart, Making Friends is an album about friendship: about distance, reunion, family, and the stubborn need to make music together. It begins with uncertainty and disconnection, but ends somewhere stronger - with, as put on the closing track, “molta il.lusió per lo que pugue vindre” or “much excitement for what may come.”\u0026quot;\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ciframe width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/soundcloud%3Atracks%3A2304206942%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-R7ySaRJUcni\u0026color=%239a8d5e\u0026auto_play=false\u0026hide_related=true\u0026show_comments=false\u0026show_user=true\u0026show_reposts=false\u0026show_teaser=false\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\n\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/meditations\" title=\"meditations\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\"\u003emeditations\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/meditations\/or-sobre-blau-making-friends\/s-R7ySaRJUcni\" title=\"Or Sobre Blau - Making Friends\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\"\u003eOr Sobre Blau - Making Friends\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"STROOM","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48339473400067,"sku":"STRLP-129","price":5374.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0285\/1694\/1956\/files\/orsorbreblau-dig_0241438d-471e-4ea2-b542-09353408ee07.jpg?v=1776410344","url":"https:\/\/meditations.jp\/en\/products\/or-sobre-blau-making-friends-lp","provider":"Meditations","version":"1.0","type":"link"}