Aa

It’d be easy to reduce Brazilian musician Ricardo Dias Gomes’s queerly compelling songs to family and musical influence: his uncle was a drummer for Hermeto Pascoal; Gomes played bass and keyboards with Tropicalia royalty, Caetano Veloso, for over a decade. There’s certainly some crossover in experimentalist vision between Gomes and Veloso, but the former is very much his own musician. On Aa, he pares things back – it’s just over twenty minutes long; songs oscillate around one idea, whether a purring drone with clacking keys, or a vocal chant, and go nowhere near outstaying any welcome they may have in your home. Surprising interjections from the likes of Arto Lindsay tell us much about the company Gomes keeps. The real lesson, though, is the way the constituent parts fall together, not neatly, but in a way that generates ideas out of friction; whispered voice, thudding bass, glinting electric piano, the hint of a lush melody.