• "Bottles, ripples, fireflies and twilight fiesta
In a lake village somewhere."

• 55 tweaks later in the remix, this version now has everything I was looking for, spatially and spectrally, with all the overtones, cross-harmonies, polyrhythms and dynamics fully revealed to better paint the dusk scenery.

• Just like - and for as far back as - "Fisherman", I came up with just the beginning of it, browsing through the features and presets of my newly acquired Sequential Circuits Prophet 600. It didn't mean much to me by then, but having a cassette recorder ready, I taped it just in case.

• Thank God I did, because the little intro motif, along with the countdown, never stopped haunting me ever since, and I knew it was just a matter of time before I went developing from it, and turned it into a grand homage to the great solo and "accompanying" guitar players who have made music from Congo the dominant phenomenon revered throughout Africa.

• Tragically enough, in the midst of moving out of Normandy, I mistakenly got rid of my Prophet 600, among other machines I wrongly thought I didn't need anymore. There went the beloved sound I've been dreaming working with, all those years. But with the magic of sampling, I've been able to re-capture the very essence of the sound, from just the first strike of the countdown ! Et voilà.

• There she is: her name is "Awa", an ode to the beauty of a continent, and call to its magnificent diaspora.

• Stay tuned: a couple more versions to come soon.

• This video is just an mp3 extract, naturally. Click below to get direct access to the full 6'48 piece (available on all major digital stores and streaming services):

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