Aquanote

Gabriel René channels his work as a studio musician and lyrical composer through Aquanote, his solo outlet. Growing up as the child of a West Coast jazzman, he absorbed large doses of jazz-funk and soul. In 1995 he took his first hands-on step by co-founding the San Francisco outfit Soulstice alongside Andy Caldwell, a band that merged programmed house beats with the spontaneous energy of acid jazz. Soulstice issued the album Illusion on the Om label, after which René started developing material for his own project. Naked Music, a kindred imprint devoted to merging jazz, funk, and house, subsequently signed him. On Aquanote’s first release, the 2002 album The Pearl, he drew upon the network of players he had assembled in San Francisco plus six female vocalists.