SPACE HEAT
















That's Hudah and Aquilla Sadalla on stage at Bastard in Berlin, November 2006. Photos by Jane Stockdale.

Doing a bit of work today preparing to get the "Jupiter" b/w "Balicky Bon" 10in out into the world—more news on that next week—and we spoke with Hudah this morning about the origins of the song. With interest on bubble, here's a little background:

"The song came about in the midst of us trying to complete our ‘Planetary Suite’—a series of songs like ‘Mercury’, ‘Mars’, ‘Venus’, ‘New Earth’ and 'Taygeta'. Yosh and Clef would probably argue about this, but Yosh made a major part of the ‘Jupiter’; he came in with the concept, the structure and the melody and you can hear it in there. Jupiter is one of the biggest planets and it’s the planet of expansion, so this is one of the songs that speak best to who we are—not only with the melodies and harmonies but with its ideas about space and life as continuous motion."

About the Aquilla Sadalla mindmelt vocal : "When we were children we always listened to great singers, from Aretha to Sarah Vaughn. But the one who was with us was Mama Aquilla. Of course Pops had a lot of spiritual compositions, and if you were in the right place at the right time they could send you into a trance…so all of that is in us as a band.
















"The most profound thing is that she captured the essence of Jupiter in what was basically a freestyle. She had a poem brought in a poem that she wanted to use, but in the studio it wasn’t working out. So I said, Close your eyes and let the spirit take you. And that’s what happened—she created the dynamic Jupiter."