Think of One

Chuva em po (LC MUSIC LCM100036 , 2004)

Think of One’s David Bovée, Eric Morel, Tomas de Smet & Tobe Wouters traveled to Brazil to make their latest in a globe-trotting series of challenging and engrossing world fusion recordings. They got together with a number of musicians from Reçife, in the poverty-stricken north-east of the vast South American country, notably percussionists Carrança, Roel Poriau and Lulu Araújo. It’s the sort of eclectic, no-holds-barred type of recording we’re used to hearing from this collective who, despite their fairly recent arrival on the international scene, have made a number of interesting and arresting releases. Opening with a sub-forró-style piece, entitled ‘Disciplinador’, the band launch immediately into the kind of breakneck rhythm we’ve come to expect from their previous, diversely-styled, albums. The percussion-heavy band rattle and scrape through the chunky off-beat of ‘Caranguejo’ and the altogether more Brazilian-sounding ‘Paletó’ & ‘Maconha do Brasil’, the former featuring a sexy, sultry trombone solo from Mr Wouters, before launching themselves full-force into the Zappa-esque cacophony, ‘Tubarão’, clattering drums and bass distortion juxtaposing nicely with solo vocal in-and-outro.

Of the dozen tracks here, the simple, funky, berimbau-driven ‘Maracatu misterioso’ grabs the attention, as does ‘Côco medley’, featuring the child-like vocal of the wonderful Dona Cila do Côco. The languorous song ‘Sideways swimmin’, all slippery rhythm and appealing chorus hook is an initial favorite, as are the pared-down ‘Pura gasolina’ (fuel being one of ToO’s favorite bêtes noire) and the carnaval shuffle of ‘Greito Grande’. The whole album retains a very live feel and smacks of successful collaboration between two culturally-diverse groups of musicians. This release should definitely keep the band in the public eye and their proposed follow-up, to be recorded with Inuit musicians in northern Canada, is in the pipeline. Winners of a 2004 Radio 3 Award for World Music, we predict that we’ll be seeing much more of this outfit in the future.