FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1999. All Rights Reserved
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CD Review
by Jordan Kawchuk VINICIUS CANTUARIA • New record from Brazilian composer fronting the new wave of progressive bossa nova. • All-star list of Brazilian pop advocates include Arto Lindsay, Bill Frisell, Joy Baron, Laurie Anderson and Sean Lennon(!). Tropicalismo – the ’60s musical movement that melded American rock with coy Brazilian bossa nova – was based in anger and protest towards a failing government. Three decades later, Brazilian sounds permeate the records of everyone from Beck to Japanese DJs – but this time no one’s angry. The music is speaking for itself. Vinicius Cantuaria treats bossa nova history with a sense of awe, and like the granddaddies of Brazilian pop he worships (Caetano Veloso, Tom Jobim, Gilberto Gil), Cantuaria pushes the music into strange and dark corners. It’s no wonder experimental sound junkies like Laurie Anderson and Arto Lindsay jumped on a plane to help out. But as much as his music proudly separates itself from the stereotypes of candy-coated bossa nova like "The Girl from Ipanema," Cantuaria doesn’t seem to feel at home in the more daring soundscapes. It’s as if the pressures of playing on a jazz label with oddball musicians got to him. Certain songs only navel-gaze at their moody tangents without saying much of anything else. Tucuma shines when it follows bossa nova down the black-and-white sidewalks of the Copacana beach, meeting sad faces and brilliant scenery on the same spot. The opening track, ripe with soft Portuguese and Bill Frisell’s warbling guitar, begs for Brazilian love "...that steals sleep and hunger, that makes us worry... a bandit’s love, good kind of love." This is the kind of music that still makes Rio de Janeiro a wonderfully unsafe and sexy place to be after dark. 3/5 |
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