In case you are curious, I tend to write while listening to music. And the answer to the next question is… Joaquin Gustav’s Joaquin Plays Valentine.

Up until the weekend, I had only heard his name but not his guitar. Now I have. I was in-between attending some Second Life events and decided to chill out, as they say, at Metaverse Island with my colleagues Foxxe Wilder and Lisa Hermano. I found myself a chair, propped my feet up on the table, went off to make a cup of tea, and then sat back in front to the screen. People began to appear and at precisely 2:00 SLT, Joaquin rezzed on stage ready to perform. I was in the mood for relaxation and Joaquin proved to be the ideal stress reducer.

A Second Life performer for over 4 years, Joaquin Gustav is an accomplished guitarist who hails from Argentina. With musicians, it’s always interesting to know where they are physically in the world because their musical styles are inevitably rooted in a particular cultural soundscape. With Joaquin, the soft, jazzy tones of Latin-tinged rhythms practically roll off his guitar. This comes over even more strongly on his recorded albums.

Although he plays for a rock band in his real world persona, there is more Samba than Satriani in his avatarial self. During his one-hour set, he took apart James Taylor’s You’ve Got a Friend and reassembled it as a mildly syncopated and distinctly South American version. He also took on Sting’s Shape Of My Heart and rendered it as a memorable instrumental. In short, the hour went quickly.

Now, a wonderful feature of his performance was the opportunity to buy copies of his CDs there and then in the virtual world. He had a small rack of CDs close to him on the stage and a simple right click and “pay” gets you an in-world player that can stream your selection to you and a link to a website where you can download the MP3 files to add to your real world music player. Which is how I am able to be listening to Joaquin Plays Valentine as I write, and all for the amazingly low price of just L$1000, or about $3.50 in US dollars.

This particular CD is recorded in a studio so, unlike his live offering, Living Alive, it takes full advantage of the production capabilities of mixing and balancing in order to get a sharper, cleaner sound than you can get at an in-world venue. Let’s face it, the quality of sound in the Second Life environment is usually fine for chatting and dance clubs, but to get a performer’s nuances it’s still better to have a digital file that you can play through high-quality audio equipment – and that includes an iPod.

I highly recommend adding at least Joaquin Plays Valentine to your music collection because it’s ideal for those “quiet times,” whether that’s writing an article while sipping on smooth bourbon on the rocks, or sharing smiles with a special partner. The track listing is as follows; She, Samba Pa Ti, Shape Of My Heart, Contigo Aprendi, Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? You Are The Sunshine Of My Life, and My Romance. Valentine, indeed!

Gustav performs fairly regularly in Second Life, so you should be able to catch him pretty easily. Check the “What’s On” listings on the Second Life website or just IM Joaquin himself.