About Abubilla

What the Media Say...

"I was recently contacted by a collective of musicians based out of London called Abubilla Music [...] I really fell in love with the vibe of the whole site [...] It made me think that this could be some kind of prototype for the future of Indie Music production/distribution"

Major Matt Mason, Olive Juice

Check Out Our Latest News

Keep an eye on our blog to find out what we are up to at the moment...

About Us

Welcome to Abubilla Music. We are a community of musical and technical artists passionate about making and sharing music while not taking ourselves too seriously. We have two studios – one in London, open at weekends, and one in Spain, in our terracotta villa baking in the sun. We are a fully family affair: the studios are shared with smelly teenagers, dogs and cats and most of our songs have doorbells and pet noises in the background. But, in our own DIY way, we are committed to Our Music and Everything Else. Here’s a bit on each.

Our Music:

We have a house band, called the Saturday Morning Canasta Club. We have released two CDs and our third will be completed by November 2010; these are:

Six Months of Saturdays: Our first CD, released in the Autumn of 2009 and featuring our first two Scholars: Louise Calf and Ed Stone. They contributed four songs to the album as Scholars and then joined the band! So really they’ve stayed with us from the outset. This is a very eclectic collection of songs as the band experiments with folk (No Poetry, Sandy, Major Matt Mason, Roadside Comedy), blues (Old Gray Posts), Big Band (Too Many Weddings), Motown (Let Love Shine), 50’s Pop (I Love You Anyway), and straight disco rave (71 Hours to Monday). As we tell our fans, ‘if you don’t like a song on this album, skip to the next, because it is guaranteed to be different.’ So check out the styles! And also check out the video for The Knife Will Come.

Misery Marmalade and Other Spanish Jams: Our second CD, released in summer 2010 and featuring Gus Warriner, Mike Park, Sophie Mackinder and Imogen Commander as Scholars. We are discovering our sound in this album, which is mostly an acoustic affair of guitars and cellos, although we drift into reggae and rock towards the back half. We’re rather pleased with the fact that the first four songs have four different lead vocals, and that Sat Out the 15th is the first song we wrote to feature both beat boxing and a cello as the main instruments. And, of course, there’s Gus – our wunderkind, who kicks off the album with his very own Fairy Tale.

If I Were a Little Birdie: Out in November 2010, this will be a stunner, with more Scholars and with the core band of the Saturday Morning Canasta Club really finding its feet. We'll post songs as soon as they're ready, so make sure you keep one eye on Our Songs at all times! And, of course, have a peek at the video, 'If I Were a Little Birdie' which should prove once and for all that we don’t take ourselves too seriously...

As you can tell, we love to write and record songs and want our fans to be completely involved in the process – so we have live web cams of our sessions and blog continuously on the progress of various songs (including those that never make it!). We continually bring on new artists through our Scholar programme and our Scholars have been key to defining our direction. This website is full of details on our songs, our artists, our Scholars, our studio sessions and our infamous (in our minds) Spanish Jams. Please click away to find out more.

Everything Else:

In addition to all this music, we are using the platform of Abubilla Music to follow our passions. In addition to our huge blog library (where we’ve collected our favourite songs, videos, websites, jokes and silliness), there are 5 things we’ve been focussing on:

Africa: We are working with Ketebul Music in Kenya to raise funds for a couple of mobile recording studios and to train studio engineers, to ensure that village music is preserved and promoted. Please check out the details of this project and get involved – we need money and volunteers, with a more urgent need for the former to be frank. All profits from our first three CDs will go to this project, so buy our music and tell your friends about it.

Voices: We have launched a global community of music fanatics that report regularly from their cities on local music and give their take on global music. Join the discussion: pick a city and join our Voices.

The Bird's Nest: The Bird’s Nest is simply a collection of folks that have subscribed to our Newsletter and enjoy all sorts of freebies, including a monthly draw for Abubilla branded prizes, exclusive access to songs and regular updates on gigs and special events. All free and you’re welcome to join – just sign up for the Newsletter.

How To Guides: As we learn, we teach. We’re a total DIY outfit and try to come up with very practical ‘How To Guides’ that solve the problems we’ve been facing, or point you to folks that solved them for us.

Best of Music, the Web and the Kitchen Sink: And, of course, like you, we just love music and videos and websites. And we just can’t help telling you about it. So there are a gazillion blogs drawing you into our weird and wonderful world.

Throughout the website, we invite you to get involved. You now know what we’re about and we imagine that something might get you interested. As a first step, subscribe to our Newsletter – if you read it, you automatically become a member of The Bird's Nest and from there the full world of Abubilla Music opens up to you.