PSYCHOSAMBA
Think you really know what Brazilian music is all about? Well then! Have you heard Johann new musical trip experience? Have you taken on PSYCHOSAMBA yet, is what I’m saying? Oh no? Duh, hurry-up, it has it all: Experimental – Electro – Ethno flowing like verve through your ears. Feels so personal yet, so universal. PSYCHOSAMBA is the ultimate post-world electronica CD recently produced by Zé Luís, who has worked with nearly every top Brazilian rock and pop star from Cazuza to Bebel and now Johann Heyss). It blooms from the meeting of two masterful minds: Johann’s idiosyncrasies and the Zé Luís trunk of unmeasured expertise with pop, rock, classical, jazz, urban-electronica and Brazilian roots. New York City’s recording of PSYCHOSAMBA drums out 11 frontrunners, and here are snippets of thesongs. Yep, you’re listening to English and Portuguese songs, for each track was born from both of those, and then some more, feelings and atmospheres.
THE ALBUM
Psychosamba, the first track, encompasses the concept of the album: a minimalist psychedelic heavy samba with bits of rock and electronica, yet drinking from the fountain of Brazilian rhythms. My soul was being dragged away, a samba groove with existentialist lyrics and an Eastern-infused melody, starts the journey where Johann personifies a romantic longing that is so distinctive amongst Brazilian poets.
The order of the tracks follows a pattern of couples. While the first two tracks are electronic sambas, the next two ones bring up Arabian-Eastern flavors. Mensagem is a melodious poem reflecting longing and sort of a nocturne seduction, and misteries of the soul and perceptions of the future. The sound frame of flutes and loops makes for a peculiar effect. Dar as-Salam shows-off a song in Portuguese that blends the urban scales of Arabian and electronic pop into trance in a familiar, yet quite original way.
Mindkiss thrusts like an unexpected turning point toward a sing-along, cold-wave tune. Mindkiss is also the first video clip, directed by Paulo Severo. Then comes the sixth track, Child, the involving rhythms are put away for a moment and you are ready to dive into romantic longing blended with primitive instincts in the form of a delicate arrangement conduced by a more-than-heavy bass line.
Tempo is a meditation on lapses of time and transitions, a true speed new age piece – a term Johann coined for his first live performance, when he started developing the concept of contemplative sounds enlaced by berserk drum loops. Under the Snowstorm, music and arrangements by Zé Luis, a Brazilian song sung in English, delivers the icy emotion of someone thinking of a lover under a snowstorm.
Pensamentos Subversivos becomes a dancing reflection of inner subversions framed by a Northeast Brazilian mood, while Abrasax is Singing represents the apex of the album’s concept, that of delivering a bio-electronic, cosmopolitan and regional, ancient and futuristic music. The arrangement grows and reaches an explosion of textures and aesthetic richness, gathering the most diverse references and influences.
The last track, Abrahadabra Horus Adonay, stands on its own in its uniqueness. A thelemic mantra with the initials of Abrahadabra (magic word), Horus (Egyptian god of conquering and war) and Adonay (Hebrew name for the Sacred Guardian Angel). Zé Luis´ flutes provide a beautiful frame for Johann´s hypnotic electronic programming.
Every PSYCHOSAMBA song delivers a huge amount of information that could only be made possible at the crossroads of an underground artist like Johann Heyss, whose albums in Brazil earned him well-deserved stage respect as he toured in Brazil. While in New York City for his 1998 release tour (S.O.B.’s and Baby Jupiter) to promote his first album, Johann and Manhattan had a wild junction, a psychotic need for samba and skyscrapers all at once. And from there came the encounter and collaboration with Zé Luís. Zé Luis’ career extends far beyond the solo artist, for he is a sought producer that has for decades been recording, directing and touring with the likes of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Cazuza, Bebel Gilberto, the NYC trio IVY and many more.
PSYCHOSAMBA is a co-creation in the wings of a worldwide release of a universal conceptual character-beat into a massive loop of partying joy.
January in stores (only in Brazil).................