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Congo

by Rodrigo Tavares

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Limited Edition 12" Vinyl
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    12" black vinyl in 350gsm matt printed gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeve.

    Hive Mind Records are delighted to present Congo, the debut album from Brazilian guitarist and composer Rodrigo Tavares.
    Maintaining a meditative mood across it’s nine instrumental pieces, Congo blends composition and improvisation with subtly experimental yet sophisticated arrangements that evoke the mood and rhythms of classic Brazilian artists such as João Gilberto, Dorival Caymmi, Tom Jobim, Milton Nascimento and Caetano Veloso.
    Rodrigo's work draws on a lifetime of immersive listening and diverse influences, and on Congo we can hear elements of jazz, post rock, minimalist composition and disparate global sounds melt together to create a deep listening experience that falls between genres and wilfully defies categorisation. From reverb drenched solo guitar pieces such as Cidade Sol I to expansive full group pieces such as De Roda or A Raposa E O Corvo, Rodrigo has crafted a lush soundworld that rewards exploration and will appeal to fans of music as diverse as Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society, Collocutor, BadBadNotGood, Slint or late Talk Talk, as much as it does to lovers of classic Brazilian music.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Congo via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more

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1.
Rosa Rio 03:21
2.
Congo I 05:10
3.
De roda 05:45
4.
5.
Yangon 05:23
6.
Cidade Sol I 01:25
7.
8.
Dezesseis 02:46
9.
Congo II 01:38

about

"...unique and beguiling...evocative and profound, this is music of rare depth"
Francis Gooding, The Wire

"...tap[s] into the common ground between meditative, ambient and trance musics. A delightful disc"
Chris May, All About Jazz


CONGO: THE LINE AND THE CIRCLE

In the clarity and elegance of its nine tracks, the music of Rodrigo Tavares in Congo seems to inhabit a very peculiar time and space, where the constructive rigour of the compositions, based on the contraction and expansion of some minimal elements, isn’t in any way incompatible with the air of perky lightness that the performance suggests. Taking the most basic rock formation as its starting point and the logic proposed by the guitar as its driving force, the resulting delicate plots operate as soundscapes of high evocative power, frames of a sort of imaginary song that is up to each listener to complete. However, if the intentionally restricted tone palette tends to reinforce (at least at first) a certain resemblance of idyll, it is interesting to note how - against the more Apollonian strata - we hear thumps generated by small incisions of disorder, ranging from the granular plane of off-beat rhythms to the sudden decompression created by the lush vibraphone digressions which unceremoniously take centre stage in several passages.

Delivering a difficult balance between order and turbulence, there is no doubt that, ultimately, we can identify in the background a whole arsenal of styles inherited from the Brazilian music tradition, converted here into basic units of a delicate game of permutation, which also clearly answers to the sensation of familiarity that the whole piece produces, similar to that of contemplating a known place from a strange angle or vice versa. Digging unexpected secret passages within the most diverse styles and scenes, from Minimalism to Tom Jobim, from Milton Nascimento to the best of Post-Rock, the success of this equation depends heavily on the close affinity between the musicians involved, whose strength is felt, above all, in how they tactfully dissimulate the difficulty and complexity of their broad repertoire of tricks to produce a tenuous, indiscernible zone between the improvised and the written, between event and structure. In good measure – and, in fact, this is one of the greatest charms of this beautiful album – this is why, each time you listen to it, the fist impression of solidity begins to gradually blur into a pleasant sensation of loss of direction, in the same exact movement in which - almost unnoticeably - dichotomies such as the line and the circle, inland and the seaside, not only momentarily abandon their condition of opposites, but also become neighbouring and connected parts of the same seamless fabric.

Emílio Maciel

CONGO: A LINHA E O CÍRCULO

Na limpidez e elegância de suas nove faixas, a música apresentada em “Congo”, de Rodrigo Tavares, parece habitar um espaço e tempo muito peculiares, onde o rigor construtivo das composições, baseadas na contração e expansão de alguns elementos mínimos, não é em nada incompatível com o ar de leveza desenvolta que a execução transmite. Tendo como ponto de partida a formação mais básica do rock, e como mote propulsor os raciocínios propostos pela guitarra, as delicadas tramas que daí resultam operam como paisagens sonoras de alto poder evocativo, molduras de uma espécie de canção imaginária que compete a cada ouvinte construir. E no entanto, se a calculada restrição da palheta de timbres tende a reforçar, pelo menos, de início, certa aparência de idílio, interessante notar como, no contrapelo desse estrato mais apolíneo, despontam os solavancos gerados por pequenas incisões de desordem, compreendendo desde o plano granular dos ritmos em contratempo até a súbita descompressão gerada pelas exuberantes digressões do vibrafone, que em vários trechos usurpam sem mais cerimônia o centro da cena.

Avançando assim como um difícil equilíbrio de ordem e turbulência, não há dúvida que, como pano de fundo em última análise disso que ouvimos, pode-se identificar todo o arsenal de estilemas legado pela boa e velha tradição da música brasileira, convertidos agora em unidades básicas de um delicado jogo de permutações, e respondendo também, decerto, pela estranha sensação de familiaridade que o todo produz, análoga à de quem contemplasse um lugar conhecido de uma angulação estranha. E vice versa. Cavando inesperadas passagens secretas entre os mais diversos estilos e cenas, do minimalismo a Tom Jobim, de Milton Nascimento ao melhor pós-rock, é preciso reconhecer, ainda, que, para o bom êxito dessa equação, não é pequeno o peso a ser atribuído ao cerrado entrosamento dos músicos envolvidos, cuja força se faz sentir, sobretudo, no tato para dissimular a dificuldade e complexidade de seu amplo repertório de truques, e gerar assim uma tênue zona de indiscernibilidade entre o improvisado e o composto, entre evento e estrutura. Em boa medida, aliás – e nisso não está um dos menores charmes desse belo disco –, é o que faz também, a cada nova escuta, com que a impressão de solidez inicial comece a ir aos poucos cedendo terreno a uma agradável sensação de falta de norte, no mesmo e exato movimento com que, quase sem alarde, dicotomias como linha e círculo, interior e litoral, não só abandonam momentaneamente sua condição de termos opostos como chegam a se dar a ver, aqui e ali, como partes vizinhas e comunicantes de um só tecido inconsútil.

Emílio Maciel

credits

released November 24, 2016

Rodrigo Tavares - guitars
Felipe Continentino - drums
Pedro Santana - bass
Fred Selva - vibes and congas
Breno Mendonça - tenor saxophone
Felipe Bastos - percussion
Marcus Abjaud - fender rhodes in Congo I
Thiago Nunnes - guitar in Yangon

Produced by Rodrigo Tavares and Thiago Nunnes
Mixed by Victor Rice
Mastered by Fernando Sanches
All music by Rodrigo Tavares, except Cidade Sol II by Rodrigo Tavares and Thiago Nunnes
Cover art - Cristiano Lenhardt
Design - Andrea Gomes

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Rodrigo Tavares Brazil

Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Rodrigo's work draws on a lifetime of disparate influences and immersive listening, and on Congo we can hear elements of jazz, post rock, minimalist composition and disparate global sounds melt together to create a deep listening experience that falls between genres and wilfully defies categorisation. ... more

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