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Gala Drop

Booking Agent :
Nelson Gomes - nelson@filhounico.com

Gala Drop originated almost 20 years ago in Lisbon, by the founding members Nelson Gomes and Tiago Miranda, making themselves known at the time by touring with American bands Excepter and Gang Gang Dance. In 2006 drummer Afonso Simões upgraded the band to a trio and the line-up's live sound expanded accordingly, becoming more rhythmic, spatial and luminous. In 2008, their eponymous debut album was released through the band’s label Gala Drop Records, in which they perfected their original blend of percussion in real time, processing effects, samples and synthesizers, where Afro-Latin rhythms and the work of visionaries of Lee Perry, Arthur Russell, Jon Hassell or of Can informed their special musical cosmology. The Wire magazine called it a “confident work of sonic collage”.

Guitarist Guilherme Gonçalves joined the band the following year, and notable live experiences followed, such as another European tour with the Six Organs of Admittance, invitations to open for Sonic Youth at Coliseu dos Recreios and Panda Bear, from Animal Collective, to play at their night at a festival on the beach of Governor's Island in New York.

In 2010, the EP 'Overcoat Heat' was published, on the New York-based Golf Channel Recordings, an admirable record of the band's creative progression and the aesthetic cohesion that the 'real band' offered to make dance music that a journalist described as ' rainforest futurism'. Further changes in the group's roster followed; Tiago's departure was compensated by the entry of bassist extraordinaire Rui Dâmaso, while a chance meeting with Jerry the Cat, an illustrious Detroit native now residing in Lisbon, who played live with Parliament, Funkadelic and John Lee Hooker in the 70's , and later in the 90's he collaborated on records and live with Techno luminaries such as Derrick May, Theo Parrish or Moodyman, led him to join as a percussionist.

Two years later, 'Broda' appears, on the group's label : a collaborative 12'' with Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance), very well received by critics and fans, which the band saw as a healthy deviation from the route due to the implicit creative challenge, that he convoked, having rehearsed and recorded in a studio in the Portuguese capital for a week with the renowned guitarist. In the same year, 2012, they embark on two different new European tours.

2013 was seen as a year of selfless delivery to the work of composing and producing the new and superb album 'II', which hit stores the following year. Considered by the band as the true long-lasting successor to the debut album, 'II' was marked from the outset by the fact that Jerry the Cat sang on several themes and how this contributed to once again improve the authorial identity of Gala Drop. They toured Portugal from end to end in the following years like never before, thanks to the success of the record and airplay on the radio, interspersed with further touring, making for example their debut in Africa, playing in Luanda, capital of Angola, for a European Union Embassy event.

Life changed in the eight years since the release of II. Under the guiding light of the core duo of Afonso Simões and Nélson Gomes. now a trio with Rui Dâmaso, Gala Drop sound became even more focused as a working band, with their new album “Amizade” (2022) – friendship in Portuguese, dwelling on the psychedelic nature of the group through seven tracks made up of dreamy synth washes, loads of percussion, echoes, chilled guitars under a radiant aura. Gala Drop have never sounded as openly dubby as on 'Dub da Meia Noite' and 'Areal Dub' or capable of converging different tropes of the hardcore continuum – rave stabs and cut up vocals – on a slow burner as memorable as 'Monte do Ouro'. Or given free reign to electricity as on the narcotic guitars of 'Guitarra Voadora' – excepting the one off with Ben Chasny on 2012's Broda. 'Amizade' points towards all of that with comforting escapism and wrapping things up 'Raio' turns dubstep's original bass weight meditations into a cosmic funk workout. An album that feels like a collective moment of celebration, just when we most need it.

In 2023 with confirmed tour dates both in Portugal and abroad, they are once again open for offers for club shows and festivals, with Amizade in hand, a digital only free release on bandcamp “Sons Infinitos” and a about to be released compilation of unreleased remixes of the “II” era.

Bandcamp
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Discografia
"Latina" (Gala Drop Records 2023) "Sons Infinitos" (Gala Drop Records 2023) "Amizade" (Gala Drop Records 2022) "Live at Boom" (Holuzam, 2020)
"Nova 12"" (Golf Channel Recordings, 2015)
"II" (Gala Drop Records/Golf Channel Recordings, 2014)
"Broda 12" w/ Ben Chasny (Gala Drop Records, 2012)
"Overcoat Heat EP" (Golf Channel Recordings, 2010)
"Gala Drop" (Gala Drop Records, 2008)

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Press
Dazed Digital: "You And I" video premiere
Test Pressing: "II" interview & review
Concert in Milan
Juno: "II" review
i-D/Vice: Mixtape Gala Drop vs Golf Channel
Pitchfork: "Broda" review
Julian Cope: "Broda" review
Resident Advisor: "Overcoat Heat" review

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Video Gala Grop "Monte do Ouro" by Sara Graça

SIM São Paulo - December 2020
"You & I"

"Boiler Room x RBMA Lisboa Live Set"

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Gala Drop