4 Elementos

With collaborative credits ranging from Gato Barbieri to Talking Heads and a wealth of soundtracks under his belt, Naná Vasconcelos is one of the few Brazilian musicians of his generation to have moved so freely and influentially between genres and continents. True to form, the percussionist, vocalist and berimbau player threads a continuity all the way through, notably in the ominous gargling that swills under his own vocals on an arrangement of Luiz Gonzaga’s ‘Légua Tirana’, and in the maddening whispers that inhabit ‘Terráqueos Vida’, an insistent, disorienting cut-up of voice and rhythm. There are echoes too, of his contributions to Don Cherry’s equally brilliant album, Organic Music Society, while ‘Astronáfrica’ and ‘Coco Lunar’ sound like grand abstractions of Deodato’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’. Most inventive of all though is ‘Berimbando,’ a sudsy, water-as-rhythm tribute to Airto Moreira. No one imagines the inherent potentialities of sound, particularly cinematic sound, in quite the same way, and this rich, complex record is as representative an introduction to the man as any.