Tag: São Paulo Brazil

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: John Finbury Teams Up with Bruna Black on Breezy and Soulful “Chão De Nuvem”

Andover, MA-based Grammy and Latin Grammy-nominated drummer and composer John Finbury spent his teenaged years playing in rock bands at New York’s The Bitter End. Finbury went on to study classical piano, music theory and composition at the Longy School of Music at Bard College and at Boston University.

Back in 2014, the Andover-based musician and composer released The Green Flash, a four song EP of four original compositions of Brazilian jazz. All four songs received nominations for the 2015 American Songwriting Awards with “SambaDan” winning for Best Instrumental. Finbury followed The Green Flash EP with 2015’s 11-song Brazilian jazz effort Imaginário featuring vocalist Marcella Camargo and some of Boston’s best players, including Fernando Huergo, Mark Walker, Tim Ray, Claudio Ragazzi, Roberto Cassan and Ricardo Monzon. Finbury surprised the Latin music world when Imaginário track “A Chama Verde” received a Latin Grammy nomination for Song of the Year.

2017’s Pitanga was released to critical acclaim. Adding to a rapidly growing profile in the Latin music scene, Finbury’s third album, the Emilio D. Miler-produced Sorte!, which saw him collaborating with vocalist Thalma de Freitas and an All-Star band featuring Vitor Gonçalves, Chico Pinheiro, Duduka de Fonseca, John Patitucci, Rogerio Boccato and Airto Moreira received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Latin Jazz album.

2020 saw the release of two albums of originals: American Nocturnes: Final Days of July featured intimate chamber jazz compositions featuring arrangements for piano, cello, guitar, accordion and harmonica — and Quatro, a Latin jazz album featuring Lagos Herrera, Chano Domínguez, John Pattiucci and Antonio Sánchez.

During the pandemic, the Andover-based musician and composer collaborated with French jazz vocalist Camille Bertault. They recorded and released “Look at What a Mess You Made of Me,” which featured Christian McBride (bass) and “Boulevard,” which featured Larry Gouldings (organ) and Billy Martin (drums).

In 2021, following the death of the legendary Chick Correa, Finbury and de Freitas wrote and recorded “Ring The Bells” as a tribute to the man and his heavily influential work.

Las year, Finbury wrote and released three original Brazilian jazz compositions recorded in São Paulo by Mestrinho (accordion), Michael Pipoquinho (bass), Cainã Cavalcante (guitar), Celso de Almeida (drums) and Leo Rodrigues (percussion).

This year looks to be very busy year for Finbury: He continued an ongoing collaboration with Magos Herrera and recorded and released three original compositions of Chamber Jazz. The Andover-based musician and composer also continued his successful collaboration with Miler, who introduced him to rising São Paulo-based singer/songwriter Bruna Black.

Black wound up contributing vocals to Finbury’s forthcoming album — and wrote the lyrics to two of them, including the album’s latest single “Chão De Nuvem.” Featuring a soulful yet breezy arrangement of fluttering accordion, a supple bass line, shuffling percussion to create a song that effortlessly and gorgeously meshes elements of samba, jazz fusion and pop that serves as a perfect vehicle for Black’s languorous and soulful delivery.

The song describes the São Paulo-based artist describing her journey in music starting with her breakthrough appearance on Brazil’s The Voice, and her rapid rise to fame with AVUA — and her collaboration with Finbury and his All-Star cast of musicians that brought her to New York.

Look for the album in Spring 2024.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: São Paulo-born, Paris-based Gabriella Lima Releases a Quirky Visual for Breezy “Samba de l’amour”

São Paulo-born, Paris-based singer/songwriter Gabriella Lima relocated to Paris back in 2014. And since locating to The City of Light, Lima has been busy crafting material that pushes genre and cultural boundaries.

Released last year, Lima’s full-length debut, the nine-song Bálsamo finds the Brazilian-born, French-based artist drawing from soul, pop, samba, chanson and several other styles. Bálsamo‘s latest single, album closing track “Samba de l’amour” is breezy bit of samba centered around twinkling keys, fluttering synths, strummed acoustic guitar, gently swaying samba rhythms paired with Lima’s gorgeous vocals singing bittersweet lyrics in French and Brazilian Portuguese detailing love gained and quickly lost.

Directed by Marion Guadino, the accompanying video is a gorgeously shot, quirky fever dream that follows Lima through a half-awake dream in a field that includes an entire living space, complete with a serving of tea. I’ve watched the video a number of times before writing this — and I’ll tell you, I can’t help but fall in love with Lima’s smile, which seems simultaneously coquettish and mischievous.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Marcelo Deiss Releases a Trippy Visual for Anthemic “Horses Running”

Marcelo Deiss is a São Paulo-born, London-based artist whose music effortlessly blues the lines between indie rock, blues, folk and hard rock. Heavily influenced by visual artists like Steve Cutts and John Holcroft, Deiss’ work thematically touches upon social alienation, absurdity, despair and human greed — with an ironic, darkly humorous and satirical eye for the absurd in our every day lives. “Cutts and Holcroft’s work embodies a powerful and scary message about humankind which we can all really relate to as human beings. Their work really helped create a clear vision of what I was trying to achieve sonically,” the Sao Paulo-born, London-based artist says in press notes. Typically his work attempts to force audiences to see the obvious absurdities that frequently go unnoticed in our daily lives, by highlighting the news and situations that we all see but conveniently ignore, and the news we hear but don’t really listen to, from our overuse and dependency on technology, to our shitty economic policies and our strange daily customs.

Deiss’ latest single, the 120 Minutes-era MTV-like “Horses Running” is centered around his Bob Dylan-like delivery — half spoken, partially crooned and seemingly boozy delivery, fuzzy power chords, blasts of simmering synths, twinkling keys and rousingly anthemic hooks. And while the song sonically hints at Odelay-era Beck, JOVM mainstays Sego, classic blues and folk, the track is fueled by righteous indignation: its thematic focus is on the greed and social disaffection that could wind up killing all of us and destroying what’s left of the Earth.

It shouldn’t be surprising that “Horses Running” holds up a mirror to our world and was inspired directly inspired by Brexit, our long national nightmare of Donald Trump, the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, and others that deal with the impact of oppression, plus his own observation that the worlds of Brave New World, 1984 and The Year Of The Flood aren’t very far from our own.“I think it’s important to discuss topics about our society and the current problems we face together in the modern world,” Deiss says in press notes. “This to me seems more relevant due to the current situation our society is facing right now.”

Since the release of “Horses Running,” Deiss wrote, recorded and released his latest EP HURL and is currently finishing up his full-length debut. But in the meantime, the Brazilian-born, British-based singer/songwriter released a trippy and mind-bending Sergio Angot, Marcelo Deiss and Habacuque Lima co-directed and co-edited visual featuring stock footage, animation, a ballet dancer on London streets and footage of Deiss in the studio.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Follow Montreal’s Les Deuxluxes on a Campy “Star Trek” Inspired Romp Through the Galaxy

With the release of their critically applauded mini-album, 2014’s Traitement Deuxluxe, the Montreal-based psych rock duo Les Deuxluxes — vocalist and guitarist Anna Frances Meyer and multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Etienne Barry — exploded across their native Quebec. Building upon a rapidly growing profile across the province, the duo released their critically applauded full-length debut, 2016’s Springtime Devil.

After Springtime Devil, the Montreal-based duo released a batch of attention grabbing singles, including a French translation of album title track “Springtime Devil,” “Diable du pringtemps.” Adding to a rapidly growing profile, the band played sets at Montreal Jazz Fest, Festival d’ete de Quebec, POP Montreal and M for Montreal — and they’ve opened for the likes of Lisa LeBlanc, Marjo, and Jon Spencer. They ended 2016 with a mini-tour of South America that included stops in Santiago, Chile; Valdivia, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and São Paulo, Brazil.

The duo isolated themselves in a 19th century church in the remote Quebec countryside, where the duo wrote and recorded last year’s sophomore album Lighter Fluid to tape. Released through Bonsound Records, the album’s material is centered around old school, power chord riffage and classic psych rock vibes. Now, if you were frequenting this site throughout the course of last year, you may recall that I wrote about the swaggering AC/DC-like album title track and pure ripper, “Lighter Fluid.”

Interestingly, Lighter Fluid’s latest single “Vacances Everest” climbed to the top of Influence Franco’s charts as a result of airplay on SiriusXM — and the track eventually found its way into rotation on CBC Radio 3. The track’s success shouldn’t be surprising: it’s a no bullshit, no filler, boogie woogie 12 bar blues ripper, centered around some Chuck Berry meets AC/DC like riffs, a thumping backbeat and Anna Francis Meyer’s sultry and self-assured crooning. But underneath the song’s bluesy stomp, the song lyrically is about the perseverance to overcome life’s obstacles and the idea of giving it all, even when you feel low.

Directed by frequent visual collaborator Ariel Poupart with artistic direction from Matthieu Turcotte, the recently released video stars Les Deuxluxes as a pair of intrepid space travelers who go on a campily retro-futuristic romp through the galaxy. Spaceships hurtling through the cosmos? Check. Shimmery space jumpsuits? Check. Laser guns? Check. Otherworldly landscapes? Check. Fights with weird humanoid creatures, who probably didn’t want to be bothered by humans? Check.

Visually, the video lovingly pays tribute to old Star Trek episodes, Jane Fonda’s Barbarella and Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Queen of Outer Space among other things. “With Mathieu Turcotte, the video’s artistic director, we were inspired by iconic landscapes from Star Trek to come up with our own interpretation and blur the lines between the future and the past,” Les Deuxluxes say in press notes. “All the components in the video were created with recycled materials; from the scale model spacecraft to the 100% vintage outfits and the liquid light backdrops recreating the cosmos. Even in space, nothing is lost, everything is transformed!”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays Boogarins Teams Up with Erika Wennerstrom

Acclaimed Goiânia, Brazil-based psych rock and JOVM mainstays Boogarins — Benke Ferraz (guitar, production), Fernando “Dinho” Almeida (guitar, vocals), Raphael Vaz (bass, synths, vocals) and Ynaiã Benthroldo (drums) formed back in 2013. And up until last year, the members of the psych rock quartet have brought their uniquely Brazilian take on psych rock on non-stop tours to clubs and clubs across the globe.

With touring and live music on hold as a result of pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns, the members of the JOVM have spent the past year hosting live streams, commissioned remixes of their work, collaborating with other artists across the globe — and revisiting their past work. The band’s forthcoming release, Manchaca Vol. 2 (A Compilation of Boogarins Memories,Dreams, Demos and Outtakes from Austin, TX) is the second of a series of archival releases that focuses on the JOVM mainstays’ approach to improvisational-based songwriting and studio collaborations. The album combines songs, demos and sketches written and recorded during the Lá Vem a Morte and Sombrou Dúvida sessions in Austin between 2016-2017 — with some 2017 Sombrou Dúvida pre-production/rehearsal sessions held in São Paulo’s Fábrica de Sonhos Studios.

Manchaca Vol. 2 (A Compilation of Boogarins Memories,Dreams, Demos and Outtakes from Austin, TX)’s latest single, the slow-burning, lullaby-like “Far and Safe” is an English language version of Sombrou Dùvida track “Te quero longe.” The album closing track is centered around their love of collaboration with different artists: John Schmersal reformulated the English lyrics — and Heartless Bastards’ Erika Wennerstrom contributes her imitable vocals. And although the song features English lyrics, it retains the original’s longing for peace and safety, and its gorgeous melody.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Laure Briard Releases a Lighthearted and Playful Visual for Breezy “Eu Voo”

Rising Toulouse, France-based singer/songwriter Laure Briard has had an uncommon path to professional music: Briard has bounced around several different interests and passions, including studying literature and criminology and doing a bit of acting before fully concentrating on music in 2013.

Signing with Tricatel Records, Briard released her debut EP. Interestingly, as the story goes, the Toulouse-based singer/songwriter met Juilen Gasc and Eddy Cramps and began working on her full-length debut, Révélation, a pop-rock leaning album that received attention for material inspired by Françoise Hardy, Margo Guryan and Vashti Bunyan that featured a very modern and poetic lyricism. Briard released her sophomore album, 2016’s Sur la Piste de Danse through Midnight Special Records.

But since the release of Sur la Pisa de Danse, Briard’s work has increasingly been influenced by Bossa nova with 2018’s Coração Louco, featuring lyrics written and sung in Portuguese — and a a guest spot from acclaimed Brazilian JOVM mainstays and Latin Grammy Award nominated act Boogarins. Building upon a growing profile, Briard’s third album, last year’s Un peu plus d’amour s’il vous plâit was released through Michel Records in Canada, Midnight Special Records in Europe and Burger Records here in the States.

Earlier this year, Briard tackled São Paulo, Brazil-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Sessa’s “Grandeza.” The cover continued her ongoing love affair with Brazil and Brazilian music while crafting a dreamy rendition full of the wistful and bittersweet ache to the things and people you can’t have — and may never have again.

The Toulouse-based singer/songwriter’s forthcoming effort Eu Voo finds Briard continuing her successful collaboration with Boogarins, as well as her long-time collaborators Octopus (Vincent Guyot) and Marius Duflot. The EP’s first single, EP title track Eu Voo is a breezy 70s AM radio rock-take on Bossa nova, centered around Briard’s ethereal cooing in Portuguese, twinkling Rhodes, shimmering guitars and punchy jazz fusion-inspired drumming to help evoke swooning euphoria of reuniting with your love.

Written at home, several months after her first trip to Brazil in 2017, while suffering from pneumopathy and taking Tramadol, “Eu Voo” was recorded earlier this year — but as Briard explains the song really came to life earlier this year during recording sessions at Dissenso Studio in São Paulo. “‘Eu Voo’ is a song about crossing the ocean to find one’s beloved,” Briard explains,. “During the new recording session in January, I absolutely wanted to do the song while changing the initial arrangements: accelerate the tempo and make it more punchy, catchy. With the Boogarins in the chorus singing with me ‘estou a travessar o oceano,’ ‘I cross the sea!'”

Directed by her frequent collaborator Norma, the recently released video finds Briard meeting a worker in the desert, where she gets measured for personally-made wings. The rest of the time, we follow our wing-wearing protagonist running in circles in an attempt to fly. Much like the accompanying song, the video is a bittersweet fever dream.

“Laure has been my friend for years, and she has always inspired in me images, settings,” the video’s director Norma explains. “I imagined her as an outlandish heroine in an American indie movie, tender and offbeat. I created a clip of my dreams, and I made for her bird wings, to fly far away from heartaches and pains of the soul, above the towns, overhead canyons, towards the blue horizon. We left the earthy Landes for the surreal landscape of the Bardenas desert, in Spain, where we found our American fantasy. We shot these images in a few hours, as the sun was going down. But as I was closing up the equipment, I felt the desert sand rise – I lifted my head and there before me, Laure was flying. I opened a warm San Miguel and watched her make circles around the twilight.”

Eu Voo EP is slated for a February 19, 2021 release through Michel Records in North America, Dinosaur City Records in Australia and Midnight Special Records in Europe.