São Paulo-based composer, producer and guitarist Lourenço Rebetez has a new album on the way. Entitled Língua Geral, his second record arrives a decade after his debut O Corpo de Dentro and sees him blend Afro-Brazilian rhythms, jazz and the groove of beatmakers like J Dilla and Madlib. Produced by American-Brazilian guitarist and composer Arto Lindsay, the album features a stellar cast of collaborators including drummer and producer Kassa Overall, Japanese synthesiser player BIGYUKI and Brazilian Candomblé ensemble Grupo Ofá.
Língua Geral, which translates as “general language”, takes its name from the creole-like lingua franca that was once widely spoken across Brazil. A contact language developed from ancient Tupi, it became a means of communication between Indigenous peoples, Black and mixed-race communities and white settlers, before Portuguese was imposed as the official language. Rebetez uses the idea of a shared language as a way of exploring what happens when musicians with different rhythmic backgrounds come together. He comments:
“It’s the idea of finding balance in between things and fluidity, as the contact language becomes the middle between people that speak other languages as a way to communicate. I make that association with rhythm. I was particularly interested in the way musicians from different backgrounds with different rhythmic DNAs subtly distort time when they play.”
Rebetez’s fascination with rhythm is also rooted in Rebetez’s family connection to Bahia and his studies with the late Letieres Leite, the influential composer, percussionist and founder of Orkestra Rumpilezz, who was also an important figure in bringing Candomblé rhythms into jazz. He explains:
“Candomblé music interests me because of its power, and because of its very particular relationship to trance. Each deity has its own rhythm, and when you play that rhythm, the people who are consecrated to that deity become possessed. You play that rhythm, and the deity comes down and inhabits these initiates.”
On the upcoming Língua Geral, Rebetez uses claves and traditional rhythmic ideas alongside the loose timing he loves in early hip-hop. “I love that those early hip-hop loops that are just slightly wrong”, he says. “I wanted to find bridges between these worlds.”
Língua Geral is out on November 4th through Selo RISCO, Jazzybelle and Think! Records, and ahead of it Rebetez has shared the first exhilarating and magnetic single, ‘Maestro’, an homage to Letieres Leite and Grupo Ofá leader Iuri Passos. Speaking about it, he says:
“Iuri Passos is the main drummer in a very important Candomblé house for the sacred ceremonies, but is also an educator. The group is very open and interested in collaborating with other languages and making these bridges. We’ve known each other for a long time and trust each other.”
Take a listen to ‘Maestro’ below.
