Boomkat Product Review:
Carla Boregas once more joins forces with São Paulo Underground's Mauricio Takara on this pellucid set of aquatic, genre-agnostic, MIDI-assisted rhythmic workouts. Somewhere between Radian, Supersilent, Mark Fell and Tomaga.
Both crucial members of the Brazilian underground, sound artist Carla Boregas and percussionist Mauricio Takara first linked minds on 2020's brilliant "Linha D'Água", attempting to make sense of the creative boundaries between water and air. The aquatic theme is still present on "Grande Massa D'Agua", but their sound has tightened considerably, the dubbed-out, dreamlike gravity that anchored their debut replaced by finely cracked filigree constructions that sound as if they might shatter at any moment. Opening track 'Desenho 7' leads us into the duo's process leisurely, thru stuttering clouds of acoustic and electric percussion and restrained synth bleats - if there's a solid comparison we could make here it'd be to Mark Fell's genius collaborations with Will Guthrie that similarly blurred the lines between electronic and human drumwork.
'Aurino' switches things up considerably though, settling immediately on a tom-heavy groove and wobbly synths from Boregas - it's the most straightforward track on the record, but simply doesn't need to overcomplicate things. Like Radian or Tomaga, there's a sense of restrained virtuosity that makes the music psychically compelling without the duo having to lavish any extraneous components. 'Jundu' is similarly direct, but wavers closer to the dream logic of the duo's debut album, evoking a mood that's not unlike Italian prog innovators Goblin, with chiming staccato synths and intense, psychedelic drum workouts. Then we're fired back into sloshy surrealism on 'Desenho 5', a prismatic reflecting pool of throbbing sub bass, metallic clatters and water recordings to pipe the mind into inspiring states.
At its core, "Grande Massa D'Agua" shares DNA with Brazil's beloved '70s mutant psychedelic underground, but these elements only make themselves truly clear occasionally. 'Areia Preta' is maybe the most obvious example, and the ghostly voices, fizzy synthwork and pounding rhythms only suggest the era, never replicate it exactly. The duo make an intriguing connection between this sound and something more readily futuristic and MIDI-assisted; their music slips through the cracks just like the water and air that informs their compositional process, coating the past and gushing forcefully into the future.