Easy to be happy international lockdown version - out today!

I started making this in May during the first lockdown, after I was invited to perform in the Treehouse Festival online edition. I invited last year's spontaneous Treehouse Festival band (a comination of London's Erni & Luke, and Newcastle's A Horse Named Gringo) to make a lockdown video with me.
I didn't manage to finish the video it in time for the gig, but the audio was ready, so I used that.

Then I decided I would make it BIGGER. So I put the world out on the Ethno-World network and invited many friends to send in their contributions. I even contacted a musician from Senegal, Fabouly, over facebook, in an attempt to take it beyond Europe, beyond the ethno network and outside my friend's circle (interesting fact: careful examination of the promo clips will reveal that most of the contributors in the video are based in Germany).

I was going to release this in June, which became July, which then became August. I was in Slovenia, then Tubingen and I didn't really fancy video editing and postng stuff online. I added my friend and host, Cristobal, to the project, and then I left it on my computer, sadly fading out of relevance and getting out of date...
This week, finally back in North Wales, I decided to finish the project and release it. Conviently for me, although not for everyone else, we have a 2nd lockdown now, so it seemed like the perfect time. I even got a last minuite contribution from my friend Yousra in Algeria, who sent her clip to me after seeing the promo video on Instagram.

I would like to thank, in order of appearance:

Mira Heller - vocals, Flute| Michael Mather - electric drum kit| Adam Sams - bass| Jilly Lukkesen & Christine Blanchart - vocals, dancing| David Matthew Gray - trombone & shaker| Hannah Boer - shaker| Jacinta & Sam Pereira - dancing, vocals| Sukoon & Meena Bablani - vocals| Luke Fabia - trumpet, brass arrangement| Vilma Talvitie & Sam Kar - vocals| Sreekanth Hariharan - vocals| Cristóbal Araya Altamirano - sax| Ernie Martin - electric guitar, backing vocals| Linde Janssens - vocals, dancing| Sophie Gillitzer, Blanche Marguerite, Judith Furstenbert - vocals & dancing| Cédric Avelon - vocals| Finn & Muhanya Pachanya - dancing| Ethnofonik 2018 - singing in a restaurant, archive footage| Maisie - our lovely bitch| Sion Rickard (brawd)- vocals | Worldwide Welshman's Floating Caslte band 2019 (archive footage) | Nasim Ramezani - vocals| Jaleh Hz - vocals| Alice Morita & Sam Pascall - vocals, dancing| Fabouly Diebate - vocals, dancing| Islem Boulile - vocals| Yousra Chatila - vocals, dancing

And here is the beatiful cover art by London based illustrator, Simona De Leo:

Tom Williams, Worldwide Welshman's No.1 mastering engineer, has sent me the audio version, which will be sent to bandcamp & soundcloud in the coming days!

Over and out,
Liam 31/10/20