Far Out Recordings
Mauricio Maestro feat. Nana Vasconcelos : Upside Down (BR,2011)****'
While today popular music is judged by economically referred standards and VIP based gossip, with only a few selective control buttons (alternative circles have often their own selections of escapist style repetition of interests) especially creative movements are those to remember. In Brazil such creative expressions did not have much of a chance to stand against an oppressive and limitating military regime, a label like Rosenbutt nearly survived with a few different often a bit more psychedelic expressions. Brazil surely had more to offer but predictable sambas and dance entertainment, the same Latin flavours had a deeper roots of Tropicalia, where you could feel the forest, the birds, the colours, the pleasure of life, something this album in fact breathes with very much. Mauricio Maestro and Nana Vasconcelos knew each other from having been members of the band Sagrada Familia in the late 60s. Together with Joyce afterwards they did a 1976 Paris session, “Visions of dawn” which lately was released for the first time by the same label. Haven given an extra chance now, Maurici Maestro invited Nana Vasconcelos to complete the cycle, most often with previously written songs between 1969 and 1977 and with two new tracks. And although this is a choice of twenty years later, something that hardly ever works with a comparable energy, this one remarkably does. Most tracks have a foundation of one/two acoustic guitars picking in an original light style, most songs are without words, but a language of rhythm (padapaa), which can be harmonised with different vocals, sometimes with female lead voice. Just a few tracks are real songs of which one is in English. The percussion by Nana is very subtle, like shakers, wood based hand shaker rhythms or with some coconut-alike sound rich arrangement, always fitting perfectly, we also hear additional cello here and there, an occasional accordion on a tango-association and two times some additional string arrangements (on “Canto de paje” more classical inspired). What is nice is that these vocal arrangements tend to become like the animals in the forests, or like birds imitating or being inspired in a similar way, thus finding the music roots of their original environment, an association that works successfully in various ways. The wordless songs seem to be inspired directly from the melody and rhythms of the guitars. An inspired album that shows the vivid inspirations of a unique Brazil root that should never be forgotten ever.
