Abraçaço (Nonesuch, 2014)
With a career that includes more than thirty albums such as Domingo, Veloso, Gil e Bethania, Araca Azul, Brasil, Noites do Norte, Ce and Zii e Zie; some seventeen compilations; film soundtracks like Orfeu, Frida and Talk to Her and 9 Latin Grammy Awards, two Grammy Awards and a Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year award, Brazil’s composer, singer, musician, writer and political activist Caetano Veloso has every right to rest on his laurels. Lucky for music fans, Mr. Veloso has no such intentions.
Comfortable stepping out from the familiar grooves and giving polite expectations a well-earned poke, Mr. Veloso has revealed once again his rebellious spirit on his latest Abraçaço, out now on the Nonesuch label. Abraçaço, the final recording of the studio trilogy that includes Ce and Zii e Zie, stacks tracks that drip with a savage boldness against intimate, poignant tracks, resulting in a recording that is slyly edgy and wholly fascinating.
Joined by guitarist and vocalist Pedro Sa, bassist, keyboardist and vocalist Ricardo Dias and drummer, percussionist and vocalist Marcelo Callado, as well as guest artist Thalma de Freitas, Nina Becker, Lan Lan, Alinne Moraes and Moreno Veloso, Mr. Veloso starts the wild ride of Abraçaço with “A Bossa Nova E Foda,” which translates to “A Bossa Nove Is the Fucking Shit.” And, it is indeed the fucking shit. With an injection of electric guitar and rock drumming, “A Bossa Nova E Foda” comes across as a sort of French pop/rock number elevated by Mr. Veloso’s vocals and a sweetly worked little interlude. On “A Bossa Nova E Foda’s” heels is the kick ass title track “Um Abracaco.”
Possessed by a silky coolness, “Um Abracaco” soon gives way to some fierce guitar licks and a slick rock feel before slipping back into that sleekness and Mr. Veloso’s sly vocals. Abracaco roughs out the hard edges with tracks like the soulfully poignant “Estou Triste,” the spare and seductive “Vinco” and the powerful and darker “Un Comunista,” about Brazil’s political turmoil and dedicated to Maria de Lourdes Mello Vellame and Barbara Browning. Other goodies include “Quando O Gallo Cantou,” the fierce “Funk Melodico” and the quietly intimate closing track “Gayana.”
There’s nothing shy or safe about Abraçaço – it’s bold, pleasingly irascible and tautly ferocious. Past the point of polite pleasing, Mr. Veloso dishes out the bare-knuckled rawness of his vocals and lyrics, content that we the listeners will get it. Abraçaço is stunningly intense and penetratingly passionate.
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Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
