Listening to 3 pieces from Brazilian guitarist Kiko Dinucci. Samba, repetition, resistance and change.
Plus, a primer on regime change and presidential politics in Brazil.
Rastilho
Kiko Dinucci: “It's been about 10 years since I've realized that in my music, in all my works and projects, such as Metá Metá, I have been working with something beautiful and something ugly; something violent and something lyrical. And I think Brazil is like that. It is a tropical country with wonderful nature, but it has its past and history marked by death, exploitation, and so on and so on… So we live with many amazing things, especially when we think about our culture and nature; but there's a lot of bad stuff too. Thus, we still have a lot of marks from our colonial period, from slavery, from military dictatorship… so I got used to writing songs in this way: bringing together beautiful and ugly things; lyrical and violent things. I like that mix and I like artists who play with it.”
A Mulher do Fim do Mundo
Guilherme Kastrup, drummer and producer of A Mulher do Fim do Mundo: “Elza has this kind of Fire… She used to say, “my name is now.” “My name is now! My name is now!” All the time. It’s true. It’s true in her heart.”
Kiko Dinucci, guitarist and vocalist on A Mulher do Fim do Mundo: ”Everything gets a little naive when compared to samba; because samba has beautiful things, but also has a violent side -- which could be in the lyrics or on drums… When you go to a samba school, for instance, and listen to the drums, that's hardcore!
So I guess these different things connect with each other. Any transgressive thing connects itself with other transgressive things. When one thinks about Elza Soares career, one could see that it is marked by transgression. Yet when she was recording samba albums, there was always something new; a new way of playing samba, a new way of singing it. Thus, when she met us - hardcore punk musicians, there was no generaitional clash. She was the one who asked to turn up the guitars.”
Guilherme Kastrup: “This CD don’t talk about politics directly. There is nothing on this CD that is talking about democracy or parties... We are talking about human beings. We are talking about living with the difference. Talking about the gay, the transgender the women not to be hit. That’s that. But the situation now…at this point, talking about not hitting a woman represents a very strong political position. And to live with the difference you know?” (2016)
Metá Metá ★ CASA DE FRANCISCA
— filmed & edited by vincent moon, sound recording by césar martini, mixed by guilherme destro —
Kiko Dinucci: “The Brazilian musician, in our popular music, established a way to compose that is with harmonic progressions to elaborate things very carefully harmonically, perhaps due to jazz influence during the Bossa Nova period. (but) I've always like guitar riffs and groovy basses in James Brown, Michael Jackson, Prince.. I like when the bass repeat itself and drive the song.
… it's like this: when it repeats, it does not come back the same. No loop is the same. Everything changes around us; different people could come and go; the air changes; the country changes; the world rotates along with the loop… the world is a loop, right? and so things are not the same.” “e as coisas não são iguais…”
Kiko Dinucci responding to Gus Venturelli: Acho que todas as casas de show, pequenas e grandes… eu tenho um ligação muito forte com a casa de francisca, que era um lugar muito pequeno, cabiam 40 pessoas, e depois foi pra um lugar maior no centro de sp, e eles tao passando por muita dificuldades. a associação cecilia, onde eu toco bastante tambem; a audio rebel no RJ tá com dificuldades; lugares maiores tambem, como o circo voador no rio. Eu acho que vai ser muito dificil a volta.. muitos desses lugares não vão mais existir quando todo mundo estiver vacinado.. eu não sei como muitos ainda não fecharam e estão conseguindo se manter. uns dias atrás teve uma campanha pra salvar o ó do borogodó, lugar onde eu já toquei diversas vezes, porque eles tavam quase fechando. Eu acho que quando sairmos da pandemia e os shows voltarem, vai ser tipo um cenário de guerra, de encontrar os destroços desses lugares.. mas ao mesmo tempo as pessoas que gerenciam esses lugares estão prontos pra voltar, mesmo que seja do nada.. O renato da cecilia, Pedro, da audio rebel; o rubens da casa de francisca.. eles tem muita gana, muita vontade de fazer as coisas acontecerem.. mesmo que essas casas venham a fechar, eu acredito que eles começariam algo do zero. E acredito que todo mundo vai recomeçar suas vidas do zero.. sobre tocar, aqui no brasil a perspectiva é ruim.. a vacinação tá muito lenta. eu tenho uma turne do Rastilho marcada na europa, em novembro.. mais ou menos 30 shows. eu percebo que lá as coisas tão voltando ao normal, mas aqui não temos muita perspectiva. o mais importante nesse momento, no brasil, é nos mantermos vivos, porque tem muita gente morrendo, e quando você está doente num hospital nada é mais importante que a saúde e a vida.. então a gente esquece um pouco da arte e do trabalho.. a gente só pensa na família e na saúde. então estamos num momento crítico e quando for pra reconstruir as coisas, a gente vai reconstruir.
Links:
Metá Metá - MetaL MetaL
Elza Soares - A Mulher do Fim do Mundo
Kiko Dinucci - Rastilho
Nelson Cavaquinho
Elza Soares - Mas Que Nada
Metá Metá - Obatalá (closing song)
Guilherme Kastrup
Le Dégoût (Gus Venturelli)
MNTH (Luciano Valério)
Tags, Topics and Mentions: Kiko Dinucci, Metá Metá, Elza Soares, A Mulher do Fim do Mundo, Rastilho, Nelson Cavaquinho, Mas Que Nada, Guilherme Kastrup, Mais Um Discos, Brazil, Brazilian politics, Brazilian presidential election, Casa de Francisca, Samba, repetition, Carta de Samba, punk, brazilian hardcore, noise music, experimental music, samba punk, dirty samba