Negro Leo is at the sharpened edge of Brazil's musical vanguard. And his latest album Desejo de Lacrar is Brazilian indie's freest, most exciting album since 2018's Transa by Ava Rocha (to whom, incidentally, Leo is wed). Always outspoken, Leo's album title, Desejo de Lacrar - which translates to 'Desire to Seal' - borrows LGBTQIA+ terminology to express his feelings of hopelessness in the face of Bolsonaro's oppressive state. He explains: "To seal is to act insolent and revolted. To win, if not in fact, then virtually. Sealing, in fact, is what we have left". On the album, Leo, explores the eponymous verb and how his native nation's present transphobia, homophobia and racism works to 'seal' and make invisible an oppressed majority.
It is no surprise, then, that Desejo de Lacrar, is loud and unshackled. It is an assortment of spontaneous-sounding bursts of expression that shift styles, tempos and volume at breakneck speed. Sonically, the result can be as uncomfortable as it is breath-taking. The resulting amalgam of sounds is as if Thundercat enlisted Deerhoof to make a Flying Lotus-produced Hermeto Pascoal tribute album. Fluttering between free jazz, art-rock and experimental electronics, Desejo. struggles for total freedom. From the opening title track, Leo's lyrics - a fusion of abstract esotericism and jazz scat - are screeched and whooped. In an almost inhuman falsetto, he breaks through the boundaries of the male singer's conventional register, sounding animal-like. He shrieks: "Sou ave antiga" ("I'm an old bird"), his vocals embracing the natural world and introducing a man-with-nature theme present from the album's artwork in which, squatting in combat camouflage, Leo blends in with surrounding greenery. "Somos todos" ends the title track, with Whitmanesque sentiment: "we are everything".
Album highlight, "Dança Erradassa", begins with a scream before hurtling intoan unbridled stream of consciousness. Accompanied by time-shifting squirming bass and angular synth, it stumbles towards a groovy 7/8 hook before totally unravelling again. Everything sounds organic - almost accidental. The following "Eu Lacrei", with loosely-swung ride cymbals, lollops and tumbles like a slinky down the stairs. Its woozy, distant vocals sit low in the mix, swathed in fuzzy, modulating organs - a million miles from the elastic "Dança Errassada". And, then, the stirring "Absolutíssimo Lacrador" breaks through the free-jazz stupor with Leo clamouring through a megaphone with the immediacy of a protest leader: "Party President, It will never make sense, Seal the mother, seal the father". With shuffling bit-crunched drums and an unhinged walking-bass line, Negro Leo is clearly not interested in conveying his message accessibly. His is unpredictable, unshackled music; and it's what Brazil's alarming political reality demands.
Tracklist:
01. Negro Léo - Desejo de Lacrar (1:19)
02. Negro Léo - Dança Erradassa (2:57)
03. Negro Léo, Everton Santos - Eu Lacrei (3:23)
04. Negro Léo, Everton Santos, Lello Bezerra - Absolutíssimo Lacrador (1:52)
05. Negro Léo - Esplanada (2:36)
06. Negro Léo - Makes e Fakes (4:20)
07. Negro Léo - Desvio pro Vermelho (0:37)
08. Negro Léo - Tudo Foi Feito pra Gente Lacrar (3:56)
09. Negro Léo - The Big One (4:28)
10. Negro Léo - Outra Cidade (3:51)
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