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about
Cover painting by Olívia Viana (@oliviaviana).
Cover graphic design by Ricardo Carvalho.
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In January 2018, composer and Inconfidência radio director Flávio Henrique died due to an urban outbreak of yellow fever in Minas Gerais. The sudden death of a colleague whose work was of great importance to the city struck me hard; the drain for the uncontainable feelings of sadness and indignation, but also for the urgent desires for transformation and freedom, was found through music, leading me almost inevitably the writing the song "Um rio" ("a river"). To me, someone more approximate to creation in the territory of instrumental music, this song emerged, in the realm of what is intimate, as a necessary song.
Confronting that which represented the 'lost' with the 'remained', I needed to characterize in the lyrics the ethical-political downfall covered with false moralism to which I feel we're constantly submitted to in recent history and to place this in the devastating scenery of mining activity in Brazil: a sad and powerful synthesis of all that the song puts in debate.
I was born and raised in a little village called Macacos ("monkeys"), known for its exuberant nature, but surrounded by a massive mining exploration, having been a victim of a mining dam that collapsed back in 2001, killing 5 employees of the mining company and burying the village's main river. In 2019, less than a month after the major collapse in Brumadinho that killed 259 people, mining sirens went off in Macacos and the village has been, since, occupied by VALE S/A, one of the world's biggest mining companies. In a tragic way, the song I'd written a year before gained new outlines of pertinence and "necessity".
Now it's time to put the song at the service of listening; releasing it now into the realm of what's public seems especially consequent and meaningful.
lyrics
Um rio não se rende
Cegar-se é um assédio
Depois de cada dente
Sorrir, um sortilégio
E arde a arma quente
de todo privilégio
Um índio morto é pouco
Um leito seco, um porco
na lama de Deus
As distrações baratas
nos valem cada órgão
Verniz, terno e bravatas
desaguam, nos afogam
Discórdias tão pacatas
afins a toda norma
Bandido morto é pouco
Um livro lido é parco
no reino de Deus
Louvai o pecador
Antes prazer que dor
Sem culpa e sem temor
Antes que a providência
Melhor a diferença,
a dissonância e o suor
Que a dúvida seja o martelo
Que a febre não mate o que resta
Que não haja súdito ou servas
Que o veneno não toque o rastelo
Que o corpo não seja uma aresta
Libertem-se os bichos e as ervas
credits
released November 5, 2020
Composition, arrangement, musical production, acoustic guitar, bass, slide guitars, electric piano, synths, hammond, percussion, choir and vocal: Paulim Sartori
Mix and master: Bruno Corrêa
Recorded by Henrique Staino & Paulim Sartori at Estúdio Morada, in Belo Horizonte (MG, Brazil), August 22nd 2019. Additional recording by Paulim Sartori. São Paulo, 2020.
The debut from Brazilian musician, songwriter and producer Pedro Guinu is a rich amalgamation of Brazilian music and African rhythms. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 8, 2022
