Review Summary: A delightful album of surreal music from a truly original artist.
So many modern "psychedelic" records are a giant disappointment. I've lost count of the times I've downloaded an album promoted as being psychedelic, studied the vividly coloured artwork, pressed play with a mounting sense of anticipation... and been treated to a 40-50 minute display of what is essentially synth-pop with no melodies and a couple of guitar solos.
Actually, I haven't really lost count of the times, I'm basically just describing my reaction to the last Tame Impala album. Still, I think there's a genuine phenomenon here, one that is not limited to a single album. With honourable exceptions such as Thee Oh Sees and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, far too much modern psychedelia is not actually psychedelic.
Água Batizada, the third album in three years by the Rio de Janeiro-based singer-songwriter Negro Leo, is not really a psychedelic album either. It's more of an MPB / tropicalia album with surrealist touches. It bests stuff like the aforementioned Tame Impala disappointment, though, in two major ways - firstly, it doesn't market itself as psychedelic, and secondly, it's further out than anything Kevin Parker has ever conceived.
(Sorry, Kevin. We'll always have Innerspeaker.)
Actually, I was not really looking forward to listening to this album that much. It was on an albums of the year list by tenhomaisdiscosqueamigos.com, and their description of it sounded intriguing, but my heart sank a little when I saw two song titles in English. This is, I have found, almost always a warning sign when it comes to Brazilian artists - the song will usually be a direct b-grade knock-off of the sound of a British or American band, with lyrics that are... clearly not written in the author's first language, shall we say. You can, therefore, probably imagine how I felt when I saw that track 3 was called "I Have No Light That Shines Inside Without You". I almost didn't listen to the album. After a moment's hesitation, I pressed play, just in case it wasn't rubbish.
To my delight, out of my speakers came a bizarre little number in waltz time, with half-sung, half-chanted vocals and queasy, strange guitar sounds, called Ritos Confortáveis. Far from being a cheap derivative of some Anglophone band, it reminded me of Os Mutantes in their late-60s prime. This was immediately followed by Fera Mastigada, featuring demented, reverb-laden off-key falsetto set against a magnificently fuzzy guitar solo.
I couldn't make head nor tail of the lyrics of either song, and neither could my lovely wife, who is herself Brazilian. Something about chaotic semen, not having a chest and his love not changing Saturday for Sunday. Who cares? He could sing the weather forecast over this music and it'd sound great.
The moment that completely sold me on the album, though, was the track I'd been dreading, I Have No Light That Shines Inside Without You. It sounded very much like solo Syd Barrett. A version of solo Syd Barrett not in the throes of mental collapse, admittedly, but still, very similar, and very effective. The lyrics made no sense to me, but as he hadn't been making much sense in Portuguese either, this didn't seem like much of an issue.
Água Batizada continues in this surrealist vein for the next three or four tracks before becoming more subdued in the second half which, on tracks like Noite and Esferas, contains echoes of more classicist artists like Caetano Veloso and even a little touch of João Gilberto. However, this side (the album is intended to be listened to on vinyl and even on Youtube, where I heard it, the "sides" of the album are designated in the video description) also contains the poppiest moment of the album, the wonderfully sprightly samba of Borboletinhas Multicoloridas ("Little Multicoloured Butterflies"). Outro Sentimento, a minute or so of spoken words over a weird, keening backing vocal, provides an effective ending to the album.
In an era where the allure of American culture leads some Brazilian bands to try and ape famous US bands, it's always a pleasure to hear an album like Água Batizada, which is distinctly Brazilian without being closed to outside influences. I'm happy to say there are plenty of albums like this being released, and I'll be reviewing more of them - watch this space. None of them sound like Negro Leo, though. The man is a true original.
