The virtuoso Mexican musician brought us a little closer to this project that will leave many astonished.
Indie Rocks! had the opportunity to talk with the musician Alonso Arreola on the occasion of his project that may be new for many but was born approximately 10 years ago due to a meeting between three great musicians, 3 Below. Composed by the Mexican Alonso Arreolathe Americans Trey Gunn and Michael Manringwho together share a friendship of more than 20 years.
What is 3 Below? “A comet that passes from time to time,” is how the virtuoso, Arreola, describes it. They are three bassists who, due to an unplanned meeting, learned that together they could make another style of music, in which the presence of bass sounds were the anchor for the listener. Although it may seem curious, the work of these friends has never been recorded and they have only gotten together to play when destiny requires it or when that moment comes to please their followers again and, why? Simply because that is the nature of 3 Below.
But what differentiates it from other bassist projects? Without a doubt, it is this execution of instruments that are not normally heard in bands and that becomes the main virtue when meeting on stage. It is an example of what these musicians are like in the individual part of their work as well as collectively.
The main instrument is the low frequencies of the bass but it is not only about that, the instrument that Trey Gunn executes is a 12-string instrument that combines the virtues of a bass and those of a guitar processed with many effects, played through a technique of tapping. Manring with the hyperbass (hyperbass) full of a lot of technology, full of microphones and other things that change its tuning when it is being played and me with the bass and percussive ideas, with extreme techniques, metrics and peculiar measurements,” in the words of Alonso.
And it is that 3 Below It moves us from the comfort zone (musically speaking) in which we are every day, it also pushes us and leads us to investigate and listen to new things, new projects that bring together great outstanding instrumentalists who take us through their sounds. to other parts of the world, so that we can know what Africa sounds like but also what jazz sounds like, Arabic music, what three bassists sound like.
Thanks to these ephemeral presentations, the band has consolidated its maturation throughout so many years of creation. Slow and natural is how they have developed Arreola, Gunn and Manring.
This year, Emmanuel Pina He will be the fourth member who, together with the aforementioned three friends, made different presentations in Mexico. They began on October 30 in the Skull Festival of Aguascalientes, on November 1 at the TTheater Diana of Guadalajara in which there was a peculiar interaction with the public, on November 2 in Mexico City at the Peace Forum Palace of Music and November 5 in the Palace of the music in Merida. Important venues within music in Mexico in which 3 Below They will leave a pleasant satisfaction to their audience and it will be something that can be engraved in everyone’s mind, remembering that they are fleeting and we do not know when they will meet again.
It is important to know these types of musical projects that share unusual creations with us, to know who is behind those instruments and to cultivate our ears.
