MoMo - "A Estética do Rabisco"

MoMo - Segredo Não se Diz (Dubas Musica 2007)

MoMo - A Estética do Rabisco / Dubas Musica

I pride myself as being a good recommendee. While collaborating on Audiversity certainly testifies that I enjoy doing the recommending as well, I personally am much more interested in being recommended new music to enlighten my tastes. Luckily, I have done a pretty good job in putting myself in strategic positions to have new music as recommended by knowledgeable peers and colleagues continuously dumped into my ears. Being the Music Director of an independent radio station like WLUW-FM Chicago is most beneficial in this aspect. My job may be to use my personal knowledge to cultivate a quality eclectic library, but there is no way in hell that could be accomplished without 200 volunteers continuously giving me their opinions on the music they love the most. One of the most beneficial (for me at least) relationships I have established in the last year has been with music critic Peter Margasak, whose vast worldly knowledge fills me with envy and awe on almost a daily basis. Thankfully, he enjoys dishing out said knowledge and regularly sends music my way that I request after hearing on his internationally focused radio show, Mosaic, or on his blog, Post No Bills, for our library. His post on blossoming Brazilian singer/songwriter Marcelo Frota from a couple of weeks back immediately caught my attention, and to my pleasure, the slightly delayed request was merrily replied with “I was waiting for you to ask.”

The music of Frota’s debut album under his MoMo moniker, the aptly titled A Estética do Rabisco (The Art of Scribbling), was absolutely not what I was expecting—it is better. I try not to think that my knowledge of Brazilian music is completely concentrated on the Bossa Nova and Tropicailia scenes, but for the most part, it sadly is. Like I’m sure most of you reading do, I regularly snatch up the obscure psychedalia comps rampantly being culled from Brazil and love me some of the easily acquirable light-hearted Bossa Nova groove, but outside the occasional Afro-Brazilian, samba or MPB record, I rarely get schooled on the many, many, many niches of Brazilian music I am sure exist. And on the MPB subject, that tag is as vague as calling a record “pop,” so it is hard to differentiate one sub-style from another. Well A Estética do Rabisco falls under none of those categories and contains none of the wily rhythms I was expecting that are usually associated with Brazilian music; it’s psyche-folk heavily influenced by early 70s Brazilian recordings and late 60s American psychedelia as well as our contemporary freak-folk scene. Just check his MySpace page: Antony and the Johnsons, Devendra Banhart, Cat Power, CocoRosie, Feist, Isobel Campbell and even Nick Drake all reside in the coveted “Top Friend Space.” Surprised me too; and yes, I feel bad about my ridiculous naivety.

In fact, Frota’s MySpace page details just how influenced he is by his American contemporaries like Banhart and Antony, he lists them as inspiring forces to write A Estética do Rabisco. And Frota’s non-descript psyche-folk not only lives up to such parallels, but surpasses them with his unassuming, laid-back vibe and mid-fi recordings that are much more effective to my ears than some of the grandiose arrangements being utilized in the American underground these days. Both Margasak and the Dusty Groove abstract of the album name Alceu Valenca and Geraldo Azevedo as Brazilian reference to his sound, but I have had trouble stirring up decent descriptions of those two artists other than that damn MPB vagueness (though allmusic has lengthy bios on each). Using very generic reference points we can all associate with to describe Frota’s sound: strip away White Album-era Beatles or Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd to the barest melodic essentials, slow them down to a Nick Drake shuffle and intertwine some of that exotic Caetano Veloso charm, and you are starting to get an idea of what we’re getting at.

The instrumentation on the album is nothing special but very effectively utilized; sparsely recorded kit drum, acoustic guitar picking and analog keyboards make up the majority of the music with Frota’s wonderfully unpretentious croon leading the way. Pinwheels of feedbacking electric guitars, avant-garde sax yelps and light breezes of flute all occasionally color the sound with the psyche tag, and it’s classic late 60s/early 70s psyche too, not the post-produced slop we get a lot of today. I can’t too much speak for the lyricism, though his intimate tone and delicate phrasing certainly point in an endearing romantic direction if any. The music sweeps with sparse psychedelia, patters with gentle folk-pop and grooves melodiously rather than rhythmically. It’s an album that you melt into, letting the musical swirls enchant your mind and lull you to relaxation.

Marcelo Frota and his MoMo moniker are definitely names to keep on your to-get-a-hold-of list. If you reside in the States, my guess that it will be tough to come by at the moment, but he is apparently seeking a U.S. license to grace us with his psyche-folk seduction. Did you hear that Gnomonsong? For now though, you are going to have to take my route and rely on knowledgeable friends. There is no shame in being the recommendee, and if you play the role long enough, you’ll be switching sides before you realize it.