SOUNDTRACK: LINIKER E OS CARAMELOWS-Tiny Desk Concert #800 (October 29, 2018).
I listened to this Tiny Desk Concert for a few minutes before watching it and when I clicked over to it, I was quite surprised to see Liniker, whose voice is quite deep, look so feminine. It was also confusing because as I clicked over one of the backing singers was singing in quite a high register so I honestly wasn’t sure who was who.
I also love that the NPR doesn’t address this at all.
Watching this performance is to witness a spell being cast, note-by-note. Liniker e os Caramelows (Liniker and the Caramelows) are from Brazil but steeped in the tradition of soul from here in the U.S. They started their turn behind the desk with the ballad “Calmô,” a testament to the power of slow songs dripping with soulful emotion. It was a bold statement of just who they are as a band and what they stand for.
As for Liniker’s look, the second paragraph uses the feminine pronoun (although Liniker’s [Google-translated] Wikipedia page uses a male pronoun, saying Liniker:
began to invest in an androgynous visual identity. As an artist, his vision began to mix turban, skirt, lipstick and mustache in his musical performances that incorporate scenic elements into his voice “sometimes hoarse and grave, sometimes clean and sharp, which forms a Brazilian black music, but stuffed with pop elements “, according to O Tempo.
The Tiny Desk blurb is certainly more current and more reliable:
Lead vocalist Liniker Barros has obviously done her share of listening to soul singers and she effortlessly slides from lower registers to an emotional falsetto.
They play three songs which cover a lot of styles and sounds. “Calmô” is a light jazzy number with some gentle guitar pieces and twinkly keys. The percussion is notable for the shakers and drums, giving it a cool Brazilian feel.
It’s also fun to listen to Liniker speak. He sings in Portuguese, although his English is excellent, except for some of those fun words like “percoosion” and “fell-ix” (referring to Felix Contreras).
You have to go back to the co-mingling of jazz and Brazilian music in the late 1950s to appreciate the affinity our two countries have had for each other musically.
“Tua” is a great song that sounds like it could be a Tindersticks song–jazzy and noir, except that Liniker voice ventures high instead of low like the Tindersticks. The second half of the song adds a great 70s keyboard riff to and some “ohh ah ahs” (and a deep sax solo). It s a fun example of
Brazilian funk … complete with a mid-song, church-revival breakdown, featuring tenor sax.
It’s hard to pick a favorite song although “Remonta” the final song might be it. It covers multiple genres in its five minutes and Liniker is smiling throughout. The band moves:
from ballad to a reggae bridge, eventually exploding into a majestic African-based Candomblé rhythmic finish.
The end is a great with lots of percussion, great 70 keys, and a robust, but not wild, fuzzy guitar solo. The band’s joy at the end is infectious.
[READ: January 24, 2018] “My Fanon Project”.
This is an excerpt from his Wideman’s novel Fanon. In this excerpt he is writing to Frantz Fanon, who fought for Algerian independence and then died in 1961. This project has been on his mind for over forty years, since he read The Wretched of the Earth. [That part is all real].
After reading this book he wanted to be like you, Fanon, a writer committed to telling the truth amid racism and oppression. He couldn’t live up to that so the project shifted to writing about disappointment with “myself and my country.” He had published many books over the years hoping to at least never dishonor Fanon.
Then he changed the project, instead of living Fanon’s life maybe he could write it
Okay, so far so good. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 