Gabriel da Rosa is a rising Cruz Alta, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and guitarist. Growing up in rural, southern Brazil, da Rosa’s radio DJ father exposed him to a wide variety of music from the homeland. But it wasn’t until he relocated to Los Angeles that he began curating Brazilian records and DJ’ing himself.
da Rosa wound up bonding with Stones Throw Records‘ label head, founder, artist and DJ Peanut Butter Wolf over their shared love of Brazilian music. Later, he began writing own original Bossa nova, inspired by traditional Bossa nova, but with a contemporary edge while collaborating with Pedro Dom, a highly sought-after musician, who has worked with some of Brazil’s beloved and internationally known artists like Seu Jorge, Rodrigo Amarante, and Latin Grammy Award-winner Ian Ramil.
The Brazilian-born artist’s full-length debut, 2023’s É o que a casa oferece was anchored around traditional Bossa nova and samba-inspired sounds with subtle elements of jazz.
Officially dropping today through Stone’s Throw Records, da Rosa’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Cacofonia, derives its title from the Brazilian Portuguese word for “cacophony,” while referencing the album’s overall clash of “notes, tensions, surprises and moods.”
Thematically, Cacofonia is an ode to his homeland — including his family, its environment and the country’s indigenous and working-class people. The album is inspired by — and is the result of da Rosa’s emotional return home after eight years away. His family and travels led him back to his hometown of Cruz Alta. Though he’d often felt like an outsider growing up, seeing Brazil with fresh eyes mae him feel more connected to his country and his people than ever before. And when he returned to Los Angeles to work on the album, he kept those memories close.
Cacofonia sees da Rosa eschewing much of the more traditional Bossa nova and samba-inspired elements of his sound. And while Bossa nova is still a part of the album’s overall sound and aesthetic, da Rosa wanted to pair and experiemnt with new influences, including Brazilian artists working in other genres and styles like Rodrigo Amarante and O Terno, as well as American artists like David Byrne (!) and Sam Evian.
da Rosa’s lyrics sung mostly in Brazilian Portuguese have a trace of saudade — the longing for something or someone that you can’t get back or no longer exists. The album also features the Brazilian-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s parents and siblings discussing their heritage on voice notes, which sets the album’s overall scene with tropical birds in the background.
Cacofonia also comments on our discordant and polarizing world: da Rosa’s mother performs a poem about the devastating war in Gaza on “Sabor Humanidade,” and other songs speak to class inequality in Brazil and the impact of Bolsonaro’s mining policies on the Amazon and its people. Several album songs see da Rosa bearing witness to the lives of Brazil’s working class — a songwriting style influenced by years of listening to narrative-based songs and his grandmother’s life stories.
After eight years away from family, da Rosa pledges to “never disconnect from my people and roots for this long again.” Cacofonia sees the Brazilian-born artist making good on that promise. It’s “me, in this moment of my life.” Gabriel saw “how proud I was of my culture. I used to be lost, scared, and trying so hard to please others.” And although he has settled in Los Angeles, where he makes music among the city’s growing scene of of Brazilian musicians, regular DJs with his collection of rare Brazilian records, cooks churrasco and lets his “inner child play freely” through painting, Cruz Alta will always be home. But he says that home is also whenever there are “friends, some sort of security, safety, and community.”
In the lead-up to the album’s release, I managed to write about two of the album’s previously released singles:
- “Pê Patu Pá,” a song that opens with a repeating tropical songbird sample and glistening Rhodes that unfurls into a gently swaying, Bossa nova groove with a buzzing psych rock-like guitar solo serving as a lush and dreamy bed for da Rosa’s dreamy coo-like crooning. The song talks about the preservation of the sabía, the songbird of São Paulo State since 1966 — and the national songbird since 2002. The character “Vira-Mundo” represents the fight to preserve the bird, which is seen as representative of Brazil as soccer and Bossa nova.
- “Seu João,” which continues a run of breezy yet deliberately crafted material that channels samba and bossa nova-driven jazz’s golden age — but with a mischievous modern sensibility. Lyrically, the song is a portrayal of market workers da Rosa observed outside of his family home in São Paulo — and he does so with a deep-seated empathy and pride.
Cacofonia’s final single “Nunca Mais,” which translates to “Never again,” is a ethereal and dreamy bit of Bossa nova, featuring twinkling keys that’s anchored by an underlying sense of ache and betrayal, as the song’s narrator describes a bitter heartbreak.
The live footage was shot on the costal hills of Los Angeles from an undisclosed yet breathtakingly gorgeous location that da Rosa and his collaborators lovingly call Petrichor.
