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LP
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HMRLP 024LP
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Hive Mind Records presents Muito Sol, the third solo album from Brazilian auteur Ricardo Dias Gomes. The album is a deep, widescreen exploration in classic Brazilian song that brings all the subtlety and delicacy you'd expect from the pioneers of musica popular Brasileira coupled with a thoroughly 21st-century sensibility and taste for sonic innovation. A respected innovator on the Rio de Janeiro music scene since the mid-'90s, Gomes is perhaps best known for his work on the trio of critically-acclaimed albums Caetano Veloso released in the late '00s: Cê (2006), Zii and Zie (2009), and Abraçaço (2012). Playing bass on these modern milestones in post-Tropicalia, and subsequently touring the world with Veloso, inspired Gomes to record his debut album -11 (2015), followed by the mini-album Aa, which featured Arto Lindsay (2018). Muito Sol was recorded between New York, Lisbon, and Rio de Janeiro and features a stellar cast of global players such as Jeremy Gustin (drums), Will Graefe (guitars), Ryan Dugre (guitars), Gil Oliveira (percussion), Alex Toth (trumpet), Tiago Queiroz (sax, flute), Jonas Sá (synths), Julian Desprez (guitars), Pedro Sá (guitars) and Shahzad Ismaily (synths); the album is often deceptive in its simplicity and repeated listens reveal layers of intricate instrumentation and arrangement, making listening something like an exciting exercise in excavation. Unlike Gomes' previous solo outings, Muito Sol includes a number of songs that explicitly celebrate Brazil's musical heritage and culture that are based on the Samba Ostinato. The songs, led by Gomes' gentle and dreamy voice, are often reminiscent of classic innovators such as Caetano Veloso, João Bosco, or Edu Lobo, though they take unexpected lines of flight into more experimental territory. There is also an element of drone underpinning the whole album which surfaces and takes full charge on "Fllux" and "Transição," before the album is closed by what turns into the molten, distorted piece of raging hardcore, "Coração Sulamericano," Ricardo's expression of pride in his Latin American heritage. Muito Sol is a sun-drenched dream from start to finish and album to be bathed in.
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