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  Otto
Sem Gravidade (Trama T004/762-2)
Great singer songwriters are usually guitarists or piano players. But in Brazil
they are also percussionists.
Airto
Moreira, Naná Vasconcelos and Carlinhos Brown are all well established
international names. And on the strength of this CD, Otto is likely to join
them. It is rare to find a well-integrated album which improves on listening.
This is one of them. It is as mature and well
thought through as a
Nitin
Sawhney, and has almost as many voices and atmospheres. Otto’s haunting
vocals drift across a druggy sea of mingled keyboards, tightly syncopated
percussion, guitars and assorted samples, paying reference to traditions past
and present; like MPB and mangue beat, trip hop and drum ‘n bass. At times he is
contemplative. At others he floats wistfully
like a Brazilian Jason Pierce, postures angrily, or laments poetically…
Only the first track, ‘Lavanda’ is weak. It is as if Otto didn’t know how to
begin the CD. But after this unprepossessing start he runs through a string of
dense and carefully wrought drugged up gems from the spacey ‘Tento Entender’ and
the trip hoppy ‘Pra Quem Tá Quente’ to the psychedlic funk rap of ‘Amarelo Manga’
and the haunting percussion counterpoint and multi-layered drifting keyboards of
‘Imaginar a Vida’.
Like other Brazilian percussionists, Otto has an impressive pedigree; playing
with or alongside the likes of Mundo Livre, Chico Science, Tom Ze and
Bebel
Gilberto. In 1998 his first recording was awarded the best album of the year
by São Paulo’s prestigious Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte. Sem
Gravidade deserves firmly to consolidate his reputation.
Top of the world potential: Imaginar a Vida, Pra Quem Tá Quente or Dedo de Deus.
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