On The Margins

Greetings, I hope all is well with you. This month I have a superb selection, amongst which you can listen to a band that combines the melodies of tropicália with LCD Soundsystem, cosmic Brazilian indie, 4th-world electronics, cinematic post-rock, glitchy sertanejo, and dream-pop caipira. Dig in!

MNTH & Yantra – Um (Desmonta)

MNTH is musician, producer and friend of S&C, Luciano Valério, co-founder of underground São Paulo record label Desmonta. I bumped into him last month and he told me he was preparing to play a live improvisation with Juçara Marcal (see her release below) and Yantra. On his latest cassette release he opens up his box of electronic tricks to play a selection of droning, clicking textures while Yantra, Douglas Leal, from avant-metallers Deafkids, plays his array of instruments, including various flutes and a bouzouki. “Rio abaixo” sounds like fourth-world electronics, a chirping rainforest of electronic clicks and ticks with acoustic, breathy instrumentation layered over the top. “Fogo” is an extended eastern drone with bouzouki runs coming in and out of the mix. It was all recorded in one studio session, so a track like “Foi tudo um sonho” (It was all a dream), with its asthmatic wheezing and ritualistic whispers, ends up sounding fresh but deliberate at the same time.

Pelados – Contato (Selo Risco)

A charming album that manages to mix the tropicália melodies of Os Mutantes and the indie-disco-electronics of LCD Soundsystem. Another grand release from Selo Risco who have had a hell of a year featuring some of my favourite releases from this year. There’s a clear theme of space and interstellar travel, I particularly like the title – which I’m translating – “Instructions to defreeze Gilberto Gil in space”. But there’s a lot more here to love: the pure romanticism of “Modric”, with its refrain of “camisa 10”, the renowned number 10 shirt of the Brazilian national team, referencing both the World Cup and Charlie XCX. “Music is supposed to be fun” is the feel-good hit of the (up-coming Brazilian) summer, but I guess you can play it at your Christmas parties.

Mulato – Criatura (Self-released)

Matheus Antonio is today known as Mulato; his new EP Criatura is a work that sounds startlingly original, creating a kind of hip-hop, dream-pop caipira. The five tracks he composed, recorded, and produced, blend genres, sounds, and atmospheres that create a nostalgic, urban and bucolic psychedelia. “Criatura” is the thematic center of the EP and the longest and most epic track of the project. Driven by a Brazilian viola, the near seven-minute song tells a story of survival and transformation. It’s about growing up in a changing city, changing along with it, and getting lost in the process until a profound trauma, represented by the gunshot wound inflicted by his best friend, is the catalyst for rebirth. The song develops in a dreamlike way, with its cyclical Brazilian viola and dense production accompanied by Mulato’s slurring vocal.

Juçara Marçal – Sessões Selo Sesc #16 (Selo Sesc)

The essential SESC organisation continues its releases of live sessions recorded at their institutions in São Paulo. Marçal is joined by her Metâ Metâ bandmates, Kiko Dinucci and Thiago França, as well as Rodrigo Campos and Thomas Rohrer on rabeca. The show’s repertoire is based on her album Encarnado, an unruly sounding recording, a logical continuation of her work with Metâ Metâ. It also incorporates songs that she feels dialogue with the album’s themes, namely death, such as “Xote da Navegação” by Chico Buarque and Dominguinhos and “Comprimido” by Paulinho da Viola. If you’re a fan of the work of Metâ Metâ, and who isn’t, then this a chance to hear São Paulo’s finest reworking material from 11 years ago and looking for something new to say with it.

Pandit Pam Pam – Newsun (Boston Medical Group)

Newsun (new son – geddit) is another release (his third album this year) from the ever prolific Eduardo Ramos. It’s an album that took him a little bit more time than previous offerings because of a mix of adult life with two young kids and a regular job within the bowels of the music industry. He recorded this album mainly using his beloved modular synth with lots of field recordings, but the field here is mainly his house or children’s amusement parks or playgrounds, where he seems to be spending a lot of his time. Therefore, a playful atmosphere comes across. This is up to his usual excellent standard; there’s the familiar depth-plunging aquatic basslines, the dreamlike waves of floating chords; but it can also be quite oppressive, as with “Peter”, with its overwhelmingly churning drones.

Desastros – Desastros (Grão Pixel)

This Minas Gerais collective, formed by Sara Não Tem Nome, Julia Baumfeld, Bernardo Bauer, Felipe D’Angelo and Pedro Hamdan, all coming from different projects and bands, blend sound and visual art while swapping their instruments to play dreamy, ethereal cosmic Brazilian indie. Everything in Desastros feels like it’s rooted in a dialogue between indie experimentation and MPB that deliberately takes its time. At the moment, this is something that so many bands in Brazil are doing so well, and good on them for still forming bands in the current climate; I mean, who would want to? But these mix-gender bands blend Brazilian MPB and folk with indie sensibilities and manage to balance the ying-yang of the male and female to create sensitive folk-art. Another album with a space theme, titles like “Nebulosa Planetária” and “Via Láctea” (Milky Way) give it away. What is it with space with these bands? Perhaps a desire to escape the late-capitalist hell-scape we inhabit.

Cajupitanga – Sonhei que estava em Takamatsu (Self-released)

This brief album is a project by the duo Candioco and Gabriel Tupy. It consists of  improvisations, sketches, single takes and lo-fi home production, manipulated with samples and digital constructions to create compositions that range from ambient music and computer glitches to Bahian sertanejo and traditional Brazilian rhythms. It’s a worthy project, dream-like and inventive as they freely mix genres like indie rock, Brazilian nylon-stringed guitar, Latin jazz, and even bolero, all the while experimenting with different textures.

Natália Lebeis – Choque Eletrostático (Alternative version) (Palatável Records)

Lebeis, an artist, cultural producer, and curator, is behind this new label, which she has used to release this remixed version of her debut album. The original version was an electro-shock of programmed drum machines, new wave synths and strange bleeps and whirrs, produced by Jonas Sá and Thiago Nassif. For the remixes, she hands the reins to Paulo Beto, renowned for his work with Anvil FX, flying the flag for minimal synth and cold wave in Brazil. Beto creates a bass-heavy electro-rock version with his trademark 80s synths riffs and sequences, and shows that his sound works well with Lebeis’ style of spoken singing. The title track has had a digi-dub style work-over by Arthur Joly, removing what was perhaps its most interesting element: the atonal guitar squall in the background. But I guess that’s the whole point of an alternative version.

Throe – Silver Blue (Burning London Records/ Deathtime Records)

Throe play an emotional mix of post-rock and shoegaze in a project conceived by Vina (Vincius Castro), who reached out to me to let me know about this and I’m sure glad he did. This is their second full-length album. The current lineup features Guix (guitar) and Juliana Fernandes (drums), both from Lōtico, and Vellozo (bass), who also plays with Vina in Huey, his stoner rock band. This is fine, drawn out, hypnotic and heavy rock, crisply produced with loads of interesting layers at play. There are also dramatic and cinematic textures reminiscent of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Jesu, emphasizing circular, hypnotic drum patterns and powerful riffs. The title track, for example, strikes a poignant balance between distorted weight and cinematic beauty with its different movements, while “Giz” and “Holding Hands” evoke vivid imagery, as if scenes or landscapes could unfold from the music.

Phylipe Nunes Araújo – Phylipe Nunes Araújo (Far Out Recordings)

Where do Far Out find all these sensitive young men who ply their trade of acoustically rendered MPB, all with fine tunes, mind you? Of course there are collaborations with fellow Northeastern artists Bruno Berle, Batata Boy and Nyron Higor among others. Araújo’s debut album is yet another offering from this community, but why is it that the north-east holds such a sacred importance in Brazil’s collective cultural imagination? Perhaps it’s because the region experienced so intimately the brutal histories of Portuguese colonization and the African slave trade, while simultaneously amalgamating the diverse cultures, religions and traditions of those who came, by force or otherwise. Nevertheless, this collection of delicate folk songs, while not breaking new ground, is a pleasant way to spend half an hour and is a worthy addition to the Far Out roster.

Eliminadorzinho – Eternamente (Cavaca Records)

The second studio album by the São Paulo-based band. It’s rowdy indie rock, deliberately shambolic sounding, in the vein of something like Dinosaur Jr or any number of 90s sub-pop bands. There are also interesting tracks like “Chap Chap Chuap Pop”, where, amongst the dirge, the band attempts a catchier and more radio-friendly sound, while still leaving the noisy guitar that defines their work.

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