Lucas Santtana | new album coming Oct.18
LUCAS SANTTANA NEW ALBUM: ‘O CÉU É VELHO HÁ MUITO TEMPO’ OUT OCTOBER 18, 2019
Brazilian musician and singer Lucas Santtana will release his seventh album, ‘O céu é velho há muito tempo’, on October 18, 2019 via Nø Førmat!.
His third release for the French label (also home to the likes of Oumou Sangaré & Mélissa Laveaux), it is the follow up to 2017’s ‘Modo Avião’, an album (whose title translates as ‘airplane mode’) which probed ideas about the human experience & identity in an age of capitalism, consumerism & 24-7 digital connectivity.The world is living through dark times – the far right and its reactionary ideas are gaining ground everywhere, and Brazil hasn’t been spared either.
A militia government has come to power in the country by dubious means, then proceeding to obstruct human rights by way of violence and censorship. It has since propagated a deadly approach to agriculture by using pesticides that are banned the world over and has also legalised the possession of fire arms, whilst also seizing indigenous lands in Amazonia to exploit their mineral wealth, thereby accelerating the region’s already catastrophic rate of deforestation.And so, having made a name for himself with a string of richly inventive, polycultural albums suffusing nods to Brazilian cornerstones like Tropicalia & Bossa Nova with elements of everything from electronica to hip hop (2011’s ‘Sobre Noites e Dias’ featured both the rapper Féfé and French actress Fanny Ardant), for ‘O Céu É Velho Há Muito Tempo’, Santtana here pares back his palette to little more than the sound of his own voice and a guitar, for an album which unflinchingly zeroes in on this parlous machinery dictating the political, social & cultural balance of his own country.
“We’re living in a time in which everybody is talking loud’ he observes; “I thought the time had come to whisper into people’s ears”.Whilst ‘O céu é velho há muito tempo’ might operate with the gentlest of touches musically, the urgency of Santtana’s cautionary counsel is unmistakeable throughout. At the album’s outset, the gauzy, illusory strains of ‘Portal De Ativação’ – whose Portuguese title translates as ‘Activation Portal’ – give way to an ominous spoken word section, in which Lucas’ imperative monologue has shades of an ominous Public Service Broadcast to it; “Who wants to speak? Raise a hand / Who wants to listen? Raise a hand / Who wants to demonstrate? Well then get up on your feet / Who wants to understand?” It’s an uneasy opener which sets the scene for the passionately politicised trio of tracks to follow, including ‘Brasil Patriota’, whose deceptively irresistible bossa nova lilt subverts the Brazilian National Anthem to take direct aim at the corrupt, titular ‘patriots’ who are perverting the country’s human & criminal justice systems from the top down. It’s a stark takedown which sits alongside similarly unequivocal ‘Um Professor Está Falando Com Você’ (A Professor Is Talking To You), speaking of the institutionalised corruption which breeds “Justice that lies, Police that kill and the church that extorts”.
Even whilst points in the album’s second half – including the unaffected sweetness of ‘Meu Primeiro Amor’ (which features Brazilian pop star DUDA BEAT) – momentarily tip its subject matter from the public space to a more personal sphere, an eye remains firmly on wider social concerns. ‘Não vamos nos desgrudar nunca mais’ (We won’t ever let go of each other) and ‘O Bem Maior’ (The greater good), honour one of the most immutable human forms of resistance to oppression, love, and elsewhere ‘Todo se Transforma’ – an adaptation of a Jorge Drexler (The Motorcycle Diaries) composition meaning ‘everything is transforming’ – references the Lavoisier Formula as a template for endurance through trying times.
It’s a sentiment perfectly captured both by the aphorism Santtana has given his new album as a title – meaning ‘The sky has been old for a long time’ – and by the striking cover art which ‘O Céu é velho há muito tempo’ arrives with. The star constellation from the Brazilian flag – which appears here as a blood red portent of current, dark times – is met with various symbols of resistance from different cultures, including Shamanism, Hinduism, Social Movements, Afro-Brazilian Religions and the Maya Calendar (heck, even the Star Wars saga). But the greatest symbol of resistance is represented by the heart and the phases of the moon, which mirror the album title’s reference to the passage, and circularity, of time.
Though this art was inspired by a book from Brazilian indigenous writer David Kopenawa titled ‘The Fall Of Sky’, it’s hard not to come away from ‘O Céu é velho há muito tempo’ sharing in Santtana’s belief that acts of resistance will ultimately win out, to hold this Brazilian sky in place.BiographyHaving played flute in various orchestras in the Brazilian state of Bahia, Lucas Santtana (son of producer Roberto Sant’ana and nephew to pioneering tropicalist artist Tom Zé) made his recording debut in 1993, performing on Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil’s Tropicalia 2 album, continuing to work as a flautist with Gil and on a variety of sessions throughout the 90s. However, at the same time Santtana was learning to play the guitar and writing his own songs in downtime while touring – these songs started to see the light of day through collaborations with Arto Lindsay, Marisa Monte and Daniela Mercury until he released his first solo album, Eletro Ben Dodô, in 2000.
It was the start of a cycle of albums that focused on different sounds and textures. That debut was percussive; his second, Parada de Lucas (2003), was electronic, inspired by the nascent baile funk; the third, 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse (2007), was heavily influenced by dub; Sem Nostalgia (2011) was a response to bossa nova, inventively crafting new sounds from just guitar and vocals. His fifth – like its predecessor, released via the Mais Um Disco label championed by Gilles Peterson – The God Who Devastates Also Cures (2012), suggested the start of a new cycle, a synergy of everything that has gone before, and which has continued with the “post-tropicalist” album Sobre Noites E Dias (2014).
‘O Céu é velho há muito tempo’ track-listing
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- Portal de Ativação
- Ninguém Solta A Mão De Ninguém
- Brasil Patriota
- Um Professor Está Falando Com Você
- Meu Primeiro Amor ft. DUDA BEAT
- O Melhor Há De Chegar
- Todo se Transforma
- Não Vamos Nos Desgrudar Nunca Mais
- O Bem Maior
10. Seu Pai 11. A Pele Morena* 12. Logout*
*Bonus tracks featured on vinyl format only 