Kaleidoscope of Babylon: Push the play button, and close your eyes: slides of urban landscapes will be projected in your mind in a kaleidoscope of signs and scents of the city, and hearing will unveil the musical nuances of each code, abstract or not, from the daily São Paulo life - the thermic chaos and poetry made out of concrete, a wall of graffiti in any corner, the smell of rain on the asphalt or espresso coffee pulled right away, the ice cold beer poured in short glass, the texture of pollution that tinge the blue horizon … The music of Guizado has this cinematographic effect and his first album, “Punx,” sounds completely drunk of the noisy aura of São Paulo. From a rhythmic gear full of electronic noise, the plant lays the timbres of the background for the sentences of a trumpet almost always disturbed that yells to be heard in the midst of the collective loneliness of the metropolis. The project is fronted by Gui Mendonça – trumpet player who accompanies or has already accompanied artists like Curumin, DonaZica, Lucas Santtana and newly formed Trio Esmeril. In Guizado, the musician searches (and thinks) his own stamp on a mixture of harmonic inks of his instrument with the textures found in experiments with several electronic paraphernalia. If, on one hand, many of the beats are made on analog synthesizers and gameboy, the recordings of “Punx” were all made on analog tape, and the clever combination of retro and futuristic atmospheres gives strength to the work. The trumpet also went through some filters and overdubs, creating climates more congested, harmonic collisions that leave no listener injured, but stunned. On the way the trumpet is played, the reference to Miles Davis can be heard – much more because of the spirit of transgression than by an alleged virtuosity, let it be said. But Guizado is not jazz. Nor is rock or hip-hop – it is, indeed, an original collage of all that and a little more. Although pushed by a pulse as almost robotic, electronic, the pace is always guided by the trance of African ancestry. Besides the creative engine of Gui Mendonça, the Guizado has other key pieces. Curumin is the drummer on most tracks; in four of them, who beats the skins is tireless Mauricio Takara (Hurtmold, Esmeril Trio, etc…); still on the rhythm section, special feature of percussionist Mauricio Alves (Mestre Ambrósio) in two songs; Régis Damasceno and Ryan Batista, guitarist and bassist of the band Cidadão Instigado, complete the machinery. With this ensemble, the band fills the gaps in the combination of horns with digital beats and gives us an intriguing sculpture made of scrap sound. It is the soundtrack that was missing in order to decipher, once and for all, the soul of Babel / Babylon. |Ramiro Zwetsch September / 2007
http://www.myspace.com/guizado
http://www.guizado.com.br |
