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artist · cΘu
release · vagarosa
year · 2009
genre · pop
label · urban jungle
website · www.ceumusic.com
date · 10-sep-2009
quality · alt-preset standard
source · compact disc
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01 sobre o amor e seu trabalho silencioso 0:56
02 cangote 4:03
03 comadi 3:31
04 bubuia 3:17
05 nascente 3:21
06 grains de beautΘ 3:37
07 vira-lata 3:37
08 papa 1:22
09 ponteiro 3:39
10 cordπo da insonia 2:44
11 rosa menina rosa 4:43
12 sonΓmbulo 3:52
13 espaτonave 3:35
playtime · 00h 42m 17s
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'sobre o amor e seu trabalho silencioso,' the opening song on
cΘu's new second album, 'vagarosa,' will be a revelation to anyone
who might have dismissed the brazilian singer's star-making 2007
debut as merely another nova bossa nova blend of cool vocals and
contemporary club/lounge production.
with just rodrigo campos' cavaquinho (sort of a brazilian ukulele)
backing cΘu's lilting voice, this song entrances in a way
completely opposite of the first album: no electronics, no
cross-culture gimmicks -- just a stripped-down, vulnerable mix of
sweetness in sound and emotional exploration in the vocals.
and then the next song carries on the exact same tone. how cool!
and the next, as well ... and the next ... oh, wait! there's
something wrong with the cd so that it keeps playing the first
song over and over.
"that's good that you liked the first song," says , laughing when
told of the defect. not to mention laughing at the listener's
failure to realize what was going on until it had played a few
times. hey! it's a short song, and a cool vibe. very easy to get
lost in it.
the big problem, though, is that first misimpression seemed
certain to dissolve into a letdown with the hearing of the real
rest of the album.
no dice. the whole set is full of revelations -- some as far
aesthetically from that simple, naturalistic opening as possible.
the biggest revelation, though, is that the first album didn't
really present a true representation of this artist.
"when you are in a situation, you cannot understand it exactly,"
she says of her debut. "i didn't even know i could compose and do
my own music and travel around with a band. i never imagined
something like this. i wanted to show first my influences. this
second one, i wanted to see myself."
it's an impressive sight. the view takes in classic samba, bossa
nova, reggae dub, jamaican nyabinghi, psychedelia and ambient
jazz, among others, often overlapping or gene-spliced into a very
distinct and very personal landscape. and against that are lyrics
that link the old traditions taught by her musicologist father to
new traditions she's carrying on in her new role as parent, all
with a very distinctive and colorful perspective.
remarkably, all of these things come together in one song,
arguably the album's centerpiece and artistic zenith. 'rosa menina
rosa,' a song originated with '60s-'70s brazil legend jorge ben in
an arrangement inspired by a version from sπo paulo band los
sebosos postizos (which plays with her on the track). its swirl of
trippy guitar, vibraphone, organ and dubbed-out rhythms around
cΘu's casually seductive singing creates an ambiance that's both
past and future. and at the core is an ultimate intimacy.
cΘu, 'rosa menina rosa'. "rosa is the name of my daughter," cΘu
explains. "this is a song i sang to her."
baby rosa herself is one of the keys to her mom's desire to more
fully express herself this time around.
"a lot of things happened since i released my first one," she
says. "traveled around with my music -- to be with the band was
great. also i got pregnant, had my daughter. a lot of changes. for
this second album, i just wanted to somehow go back to the essence
of the music in my life. music is such an important thing, and
'vagarosa,' the name of the album -- i don't know how to exactly
translate, but it means 'slowly.' with all the things that
happened, i wanted to go down and try with all the new
technologies, information, things you need to do day by day, just
to slow down, to be in the places i am, not be in places traveling
around. that was the idea of the album. also, it's the second one,
i was more on me, you know."
she laughs suddenly as she grasps for fitting words and phrases,
apologetically saying, "my english is weird."
"to put myself more," she concludes. "not just the influences."
so she has 'rosa' for her daughter. and she has 'papa' for her
father, reminding herself of some parental wisdom.
"it was a moment when everything was happening: 'you must do this
and that,'" she says. "was doing a lot of shows. and i was just
having a conversation with my father and he said i should
sometimes not take everything so serious. serious is another
thing, not your life. misery is much more serious. the war is
serious. so it was a great conversation with my father."
and with that, she was free to explore the great wealth of music
in her life. what jumps out of the mix most prominently are the
jamaican sounds, though the influences are often integrated fully
in with other sounds, on such tracks as 'bubuia' making for a true
sπo paulo-kingston hybrid:
cΘu, 'bubuia' - "i think my show when i played live, it was
already more a jamaican vibe," she says. "i don't know exactly
when it started. i probably could say i was 15 years old maybe.
i'm a big fan of dub and dancehall. i grew up in a musical family
listening to especially traditional music from brazil --
old-school sambas, music from the northeast. i'm a big fan of
baden powel, of various traditional things. but i also liked a lot
of jamaican and afrobeat stuff too. i have a lot of studio one
albums, like the upsetters, king tubby, lee perry, all this. nice
artists. it's everything -- the vibe, the beat, the melody.
"i think just the way i write my melodies, the music and also the
lyrics, it's kind of a personal diary. i live in a huge city, so
many people from all over brazil here, from north to south. it's a
big mixture of so many cultures. i think i have something that is
just part of my culture. i bring a lot of different influences,
but i try to reduce all this on my own vision of music. if i'm
going to do a samba album -- no, i'm not just samba. it's not just
a rhythm. it's a whole way you live your life, and i'm not like
this. i've traveled. i had the opportunity to live in new york.
and these things change you. i try for my music to be true to
myself as a diary. it's traditional music but from the whole
brazilian culture."
in that regard, 'espaτonave,' the last song on the album, might be
the most "traditional." well, as traditional as something with a
title that translates as "spaceship" can be. in this case, the
traditions trace to os mutantes, the out-there ensemble that was
at the core of the beatles-inspired, anything-goes tropicalia
movement of the '60s and '70s. of course, adding her own twists
give the song a funky skip almost out of new orleans via p-funk
and prince.
"the song starts like a nyabinghi song," cΘu says. "i was here in
sπo paulo and full of all this pollution and concrete, and i just
wanted to get away. i was making a connection between the nature
and a spaceship -- mother nature -- it's a kind of psychedelic
song."
but now having gone all the way on this journey to the
stratosphere, let's suppose the whole album had been along the
lines of that persistent opener, 'sobre o amor e seu trabalho
silencioso.' from the way cΘu talks about the song, that wouldn't
be a bad thing at all.
"it's about the chemical process when you fall in love -- the love
thing," she says. "when you meet someone and all the things start
to happen in your body as the silence works, you don't have to do
nothing. it just happens to you."
(review by steve hochman)
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