For a musician so indelibly linked to the Chicago avant music scene, it perhaps seems odd that one of the best places to start investigating the work of cornetist
Rob Mazurek is an album rooted in Sao Paulo, over 5,000 miles to the southeast of the Windy City. But indeed,
Sao Paulo Underground's
Tres Cabecas Loucuras, released by
Cuneiform in 2011, is one of
Mazurek's most engaging efforts, readily accessible to listeners of many persuasions with just the right amount of exploratory avant-gardisms to satisfy those with an adventurous streak.
Mazurek lived in Brazil from 2000 to 2005 but
Sao Paulo Underground, a duo pairing him with percussionist
Mauricio Takara, didn't arrive on disc until 2006's
Sauna: Um, Dois, Tres on the
Aesthetics label. An avant take on tropicalia, this opening salvo put an intriguing spin on some of
Mazurek's signature sounds, including the muted late-night electronica of
Isotope 217 as well as his
Chicago Underground groups, with tracks ranging from abstract sound collage to rhythmic grooving, sometimes with a loose jamming quality and murky sonics. Two years later keyboardist
Guilherme Granado and drummer
Richard Ribeiro transformed the duo into a quartet for
The Principle of Intrusive Relationships, also released by
Aesthetics, and the group's deep dubby modus operandi remained intact. With
Tres Cabecas Loucuras,
Sao Paulo Underground have emerged into the daylight.
Admittedly, the group's first two albums were deeply immersive listening experiences, but
Tres Cabecas Loucuras makes a much stronger tropicalia connection. The album is comparatively breezy, rhythmically infectious, and even tuneful, qualities that tropicalia possessed from the start and that stand out in bolder relief here than on
Sao Paulo Underground's first two discs. That's not to suggest the band has abandoned its previous experimentalism, but rather has shaped it into something more appealing and concise: check the brief second track "Pigeon," where the group's ear-tweaking timbres -- with wild and squelchy electronics and
Mazurek's echoed horn -- are employed in a tune suggesting
Weather Report's most celebratory world fusion. At least at the start, album highlight "Carambola" wouldn't be out of place in a Latin dance mix.
Takara strums away on a cavaquinho (Brazilian ukulele) as
Mazurek kicks out a high-spirited melody line while
Granado and
Ribeiro drive the rhythm with a deep buzz and half-buried clatter -- it all collapses into blurty electronic free improvisation but the quartet pulls it back together for a buoyant unison finale. There's even a take on understated tropicalia-flavored vocals with "Colibri," and genuinely crystalline clarity enters the picture when
Mazurek Chicago collaborator vibraphonist
Jason Adasiewicz opens (along with
Tortoise drummer
John Herndon) "Just Lovin'," a sonic street parade complete with tuned percussion loops, and solos in "Six Six Eight," a flat-out high-flying jazzer also featuring bassist
Matthew Lux. The closing "Rio Negro," with a chorus of
Mazureks, deeply bent and fractured electronics, and echoing stereo-panned drums, shows that
Sao Paulo Underground still know when to dive back into darkness, keeping the breeziness in check. ~ Dave Lynch
