Album Notes

Amilcar describes his enthusiasm for creating instrumental music that is universally appealing to many cultures as "like speaking Esperanto in music." The natural sounds accenting his meditative music helps to "tone down the turmoil and confusion in the world for awhile," he notes. "It helps us become quiet inside." Rather than using off-the-shelf samples, Amilcar personally recorded the nature sounds heard on VACUUMING THE FOREST at different locations around the globe, from sub-tropical Periwinkle and Cardinal birds and cicadas in Florida to South American crickets, from Japanese shishi-odoshi fountains to crickets in the deep forest in the south of France.
"It is as if my portable digital recorder had created a vacuum to capture for posterity sounds of certain species," he explains. "Sounds of nature really surround us all the time, but we tend to ignore them as we are pre-occupied with the stress of daily life.

On VACUUMING THE FOREST, I didn't want to overwhelm the listener with sounds of nature, but rather give a gentle hint or reminder that Mother Earth is around us, always. By having the opportunity to travel around the world and visiting national parks and forests, I learned to appreciate the calming natural music made by nature.

Putting his philosophy into action, Amilcar is donating a portion of proceeds to Covenant House Florida, a shelter for runaway and homeless children; for more information visit www.covernanthousefl.org.