ARRIGO BARNABÉ — Façanhas (1992) @Mp320K

Arrigo Barnabé is an important composer/arranger from the "vanguarda paulistana" (musical movement developed in São Paulo which consisted in appropriation of the wildest erudite experimentations mixed with pop culture). Barnabé came out with two stunning releases, Clara Crocodilo (1980) and Tubarões Voadores (1984) (appointed by the French magazine Jazz Hot as one of the best in the world), which sold about 40,000 copies. Mixing Webern and Weil's dissonant harmonies with creative dodecaphonic and atonal melodies with pop culture references (such as the throaty voice of the São Paulo's most popular crime radio reporter) and the strongest, heaviest Brazilian grooves, his releases had an unsurpassed energy. This release is devoted to ballads, in which a subtle romanticism gives room for passages reminiscent of a person on the verge of insanity. It doesn't showcase his most representative moments, which should be looked upon those two previous albums, but is an interesting record nonetheless. Alvaro Neder