During September 2006, Secret Beach traveled deep into South Park, Colorado, to a small mountain town called Alma, together with musician Jon Chambers, creative advisor and friend Jace Deagan, and a truck full of gear. The occasion marked the first Secret Beach musician's retreat, and an intensive collaborative electronic ambient recording project. Throughout the next ten days, we recorded hours of ambient tracks, inspired by South Park's strange and amazing mountain landscape.

These are short clips of musical works in progress:

• Mountain Bike
• Repeater Song
• Western Family
• Campfire Jam

Jon Chambers hails from Bettendorf, Iowa and is a very keen drummer and an accomplished synth player. He plays the guitar too. Jace Deagan, although he comes from a very musical background, chose to provide the much needed glue and guidance throughout the 10-day undertaking. He kept things on track and focused and helped balance the music recording with fun local activities. I contributed synth, bass, and guitar and tracked the project with Ableton Live. After a few days of work, the project came to be called Five Thousand People. Visit the Myspace webpage devoted to our project:: www.myspace.com/fivethousandpeople
 
We moved all the equipment ourselves, set up, tore down. It was an essential DIY experiment. We are currently in the middle of sorting it out, but here you can listen to raw mixes of some of the songs.

You can expect more interesting retreats and collaborative recording projects from Secret Beach in the future..

Read More:

• I want to go on the retreat - retreat details
• South Park Music Festival - Sept 7-10