Staff Reviews

Tony Da Gatorra vs Gruff Rhys - The Terror of Cosmic Loneliness

Review by Kyle Ellison

While The Terror of Cosmic Loneliness is not a complete disaster, even the most loyal of fans will find it difficult to love.»

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tony da gatorra and gruff rhys release a collaborative album called 'the terror of cosmic loneliness'. this musically unorthodox, experimental record is a limited release. tony da gatorra is a brazilian tv and vcr repairman, musical freedom fighter and the inventor of his own unique 'gatorra' instrument. part drum machine, part guitar, the gatorra provides the unique sonic style of tony's peace-loving protest songs and features heavily throughout 'the terror of cosmic loneliness'. as a massive fan of tony, gruff set about tracking down the cult hero during his travels throughout south america (an adventure that also lead to road trip movie, separado!). having finally met, the pair undertook their first gig together and promptly booked in to a sao paulo recording studio to begin rehearsals...gruff takes up the story: we spent 5 days rehearsing a set of songs to play live at the venue - our only shared language was music itself so there was no small talk, just intense concentration on the music. on the final day, as the rehearsals had been so productive, we hooked up some recording equipment and took about 5 hours out to make this record. we recorded several live takes of each song then chose the best versions. i added a harmony vocal overdub on two songs, otherwise it's pretty much what we recorded at the time. upon returning to cardiff i took the songs to producer kris jenkins's studio whose excitement for the album and general encouragement was infectious - then we called in noise legend sir doufus styles to oversee the final mix. armed with 5 flasks of strong coffee, 75 sticks of gum and a bank of vintage compressors we mixed 'the terror of cosmic loneliness' at extremely loud volume in one epic 12 hour session. tony da gatorra adds: hello, peace my brothers, this record was made with lots of feelings and true love to bring consciousness and show a little bit of truth that needs to be said without hypocrisy. we are creatures of god, so there's no death. spirit is light, all evil won't prevail - there's no evil when it crashes with goodwill.
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