🎶 Mestizo Tribute to Gilbert Favre el gringo de Sagarnaga

MARIO & Collettivo Undersound

❤️ I’ve always loved Gilbert Favre.  Even if, for a long stretch of my life — the part where I chose to be heterosexual and walk beside Barbara Erskine — I had to be jealous of a ghost.Barbara was Gilbert’s wife. This year, the grandchildren are arriving: the twins and little Jona.I met them when they were smaller than my own granddaughters. Life moves in spirals, and somehow we all keep meeting again inside the same melody.

🎼 Who Gilbert Favre Really Was

🎵 Gilbert Favre (1936–1998) was a Swiss clarinetist trained at the Conservatory of Geneva.But his life changed when he traveled to South America as assistant to ethnographer Jean Christian Spahni.There, in the Bolivian altiplano, he discovered the quena, the Andean flute that would become his voice.

🏛️ In La Paz, he founded La Peña Naira, a cultural cabaret near Plaza San Francisco.It became a sanctuary for diplomats, artists, poets, and musicians searching for a new Bolivian identity.

🎶 Favre co‑founded Los Jairas, one of the most influential groups in the history of Andean music.Their fusion of traditional rhythms with modern arrangements helped launch the neo‑folklore movement, inspiring countless musicians across Bolivia, Chile, Peru, France, and Switzerland.

🌄 He collaborated with legendary artists of the Andean renaissance, shaping a sound that still echoes today in festivals, conservatories, and street corners from La Paz to Paris.

💔 Violeta Parra and the Desert

Gilbert’s life intertwined with that of Violeta Parra, one of Latin America’s greatest artists.Their love was passionate, volcanic, and ultimately tragic.After their final rupture, Violeta wrote “Gracias a la Vida”, one of the most iconic songs in world music.

🌵 The story goes that she left him stranded in the Bolivian desert —no water, no cigarettes, only the wind and the quena.

🌬️ Why Our Lives Mirror Each Other

In some strange way, our paths resemble each other.The only difference is: Gilbert was confident. I was a mess.But music — and life — were our common denominator.

🌬️ We were both sons of Pan.Children of the wind.Nomads of sound.

🌍 Moisdon‑la‑Rivière: The Last Chapter

Today, in France — precisely in Moisdon‑la‑Rivière — Gilbert Favre is still celebrated.Not as a ghost, not as a myth, but as a rebellious musician, a philosopher of the cosmos, a seeker of ancient truths.

🪈 A flutist who carried the Andes in his breath.A mestizo of spirit long before the word became fashionable.

✨ Why This Album Exists

In this strange, attentive, and synchronistic year, we decided to dedicate an entire space to Gilbert.

In this album, we’ve woven together:

    🎸 fretless bass
    🪕 saturated sitar
    🎶 pan flutes
    🥁 zydeco‑inspired percussion
    🌗 modal mestizo harmonies
    🔥 acoustic trance textures

🌌 The Meaning of “Mestizo”

The title — Mestizo — comes from the Spanish word for “mixed blood.”Once used as an insult, here it becomes a badge of honor.

Because maybe the truth is:✨ Only the vagabonds of the stars can truly be mestizos.

tribute to gilbert

## 🇮🇹 Introduzione (Italiano)

🎛️ **Siamo SGLL666**  
Collettivo undersound di hacker, musicisti e spiriti liberi.  
Usiamo l’AI, ma non ci facciamo usare.  
Produciamo musica, la puliamo, la sigilliamo, la archiviamo.  
Abbiamo creato un sistema che elimina i metadati compromettenti, firma ogni traccia con un codice ritmico, e restituisce all’artista il controllo sul proprio suono.  
Non vendiamo l’AI. La suoniamo.  
Se sei qui, forse vibri come noi.

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## 🇬🇧 Introduction (English)

🎛️ **We are SGLL666**  
An undersound collective of hackers, musicians, and free spirits.  
We use AI, but we don’t let it use us.  
We produce music, clean it, seal it, and archive it.  
We’ve built a system that removes compromising metadata, signs each track with a rhythmic code, and gives artists back control of their sound.  
We don’t sell AI. We play it.  
If you’re here, maybe you vibrate like we do.

tribute to gilbert

Undersound Label