#MusicInTheAir Podcast hosts this week :
SPARROW & BARBOSSA

Villahangar continues to welcome new artists of the highest importance for its #MusicInTheAir format.

Today for the Podcast it is the turn of the debut of an exceptional duo: Sparrow & Barbossa, a duo of DJs and producers based in Madrid, Spain, formed by the Swiss Bryan Coletta and the Uruguayan Emiliano Haberli.

Both of them have always been immersed in music. Bryan is a pianist and comes from a family of musicians: his father is the legendary guitarist Francis Coletta who worked with artists such as Whitney Houston, Quincy Jones or Frank Sinatra.

Emiliano, on the other hand, was born and raised in a region of Uruguay dominated by African colonialists and was largely influenced by “The Culture Of Candombe”, a pure African tribal rhythm of colonialism.

From a very young age Bryan has been influenced by soul, jazz and funk, which he uses in his creations with his great ability to improvise and to be versatile.

Emiliano moved to Europe 15 years ago, where he connected with the electronic music scene, starting to form his style in the music world, playing drums for DJ Chus & Joeski in their classic track called “El Amor”.

Together, Bryan and Emiliano form Sparrow & Barbossa, creating a fusion of progressive organic and electronic sounds. Their age difference has a positive influence on both their outputs and performance. While Bryan brings the freshness of modern sounds and melodies, Emiliano refines the rhythmic part and accumulates his knowledge over the years.

Barbossa in fact takes care of the rhythmic bases and solos while Sparrow takes care of the melodic / FX / Mixing side of the editing with both collaborating on the general arrangements.

Globe-trotters, they are true lovers of ethnic and lost cultures, and dedicated to transmitting this legacy through electronic music.

Among their influences, a lot of Afro-Latin music but also oriental and tribal influences. Being both musicians, they boast a decent musical background in Jazz, Latin, Salsa, Candombe, among other genres.

They combine two different pasts together: Barbossa in fact comes from a classic house background with more than 20 years of residence at Space in Ibiza, while Sparrow comes from a more melodic background after his residence at D Club Lausanne.

They therefore shy away from categorization into a specific genre: their work is a transmission of multicultural heritage through electronic music, but it could be defined as halfway between Latin and Afro House.

They have released with many international labels, such as MoBlack, Mandoras in Da House, Stereo Productions, Redolent Music, Radiant, Cacao, Inward, Parallel, Wired.

Part of the Redolent Music family, co-owners of Inward Records along with Pippi Ciez and ST53, Sparrow & Barbossa are best known for their version of Mory Kante’ Yeke’ released on Enzo Sifredi’s Wired label, which reached the #1 Afro House and their remix of Fatoumata Diawara’s ‘Nterini’ released on MoBlack which reached the #2 Afro House.

As for current and future projects, they have just released their debut album “SEVEN SEAS” on Redolent, which will see the release of various remix packages throughout the year on all the major afro house labels.

As for performances, Seven Seas marks the beginning of a new offer of Live Performances that they plan to take on tour in the coming months. For now they will be touring Europe until October and then they will return to the Americas and the Caribbean in October for a few months.

Bryan Coletta (Sparrow): you are a pianist and come from a family of musicians: your father is the legendary guitarist Francis Coletta who worked with artists like Whitney Houston, Quincy Jones, or Frank Sinatra. Where were you born and how has coming from a musical family influenced your approach to music and your musical style?

I was born in Switzerland in Fribourg where I grew up with my parents and stayed until the age of 20. Since very young my dad put me in the studio and taught me the basics of Audio Engineering, Recording, Editing alongside his team of skilled engineers (Cheers to Awerell, NiceHill Studio). He also used to bring me to his gigs when I was a little kid and I used to sleep in his guitar case in the backstage, so music really has been part of my childhood since very young. He also took me to various major recording sessions of his, for example in Hansa Studio Berlin, when I kept learning more and more things also about mastering and producing on heavy duty gear like pro tools and analogic gear. All of this background definitely contributes daily to my current music production and inspiration and I consider it as the most precious legacy ever and I plan on taking it to the next generation one day, hopefully.

Bryan Coletta (Sparrow): Do you play other instruments besides the piano? And besides those you play, are there others that fascinate you for their evocative capacity and sound?

Besides Piano and Keys, Organs, Synths, I don’t play any other instrument even though I’ve always been a huge fan of Guitar/Bass instruments. Recently I started live performing with Live on stage and I definitely consider this as a kind of “instrument” as the improvisation possibilities are so infinite. Coming from a Jazz background I would say I finally found my perfect impro playground with the electronic music live performance.

Emiliano Haberli (Barbossa): You were born and raised in an Uruguay region. How much and how did it influence you from a musical point of view?

Growing up there has been a huge inspiration and takes a huge part of my current music. I have been since very young influenced by the colonial “Candombe” rythms and salsa, amongst others. There is not a day in the studio in which I don’t use this musical background in our productions.

How do you live now and have you experienced in the recent past this particular moment for humanity of epidemic? How did you make up for the lack of being able to travel for your inspirations?

Honestly it has been very hard in the beginning for both of us but at some point we managed to convert all this frustration in inspiration and came up with that 12 tracks album alongside maybe 20-30 more productions throughout last year, and in the end we’re kind of happy it happened so we could focus so much on the production side.

You have joined forces with the Inward Records label. How long and how have you made this decision and what is the label’s artistic direction?

It’s been more than a year now that we’ve been working with Pippi on this project and we’re tremendously happy with it. Secret fact is that we will soon be ambassadors of a new genre on beatport and take a big curve with the label, we’re really looking forward to this and you will know more very soon.

How long have you been part of Redolent Music and how did your meeting with the dj Chus of such great experience and long career happen?

We have been part of the Redolent Music family since the very beginning as we started working with Chus as our general manager, we were involved in the very first draft idea of the Label.

The funny story about how we connected with Chus is that Barbossa (Uru Haberli) actually recorded an international hit with him in Joeski back in New York 20 years ago called “El Amor”, which we actually remixed a year ago on Stereo Productions.

20 years later, one day Chus contacted us on Instagram, without knowing Barbossa was actually Uru with whom he worked with, because he thought that our work with Yeke was amazing and wanted to connect. It is after that that he finally realized he knew Barbossa and everything started there. We are truly thankful for this encounter and all the artistic coaching he’s been doing for us and truly think this relationship will be endless.