Saturday, April 07, 2007

253. Milton Nascimento and Lo Borges - Clube Da Esquina (1972)

















Track Listing

1. Tudo Que Voce Podia Ser
2. Cais
3. O Trem Azul
4. Saidas E Bandeiras
5. Nuvem Cigana
6. Cravo E Canela
7. Dos Cruces
8. Um Girassol Da Cor De Seu Cabelo
9. San Vincente
10. Estrelas
11. Clube Da Esquina No 2
12. Paisagem Da Janela
13. Me Deixe Em Pas
14. Os Povos
15. Saidas E Bandeiras (2)
16. Um Gosto De Sol
17. Pelo Amor De Deus
18. Lilia
19. Trem De Doido
20. Nada Sera Como Antes
21. Ao Que Vai Nascer

Review

This is another amazing piece of music to come out of Brazil. After Jobim, Os Mutantes and Caetano Veloso we get Milton Nascimento with this amazing double album. It sounds surprisingly modern, in fact it sounds more modern than most Anglo-Saxon production and that is probably because it has a very original sound which has later been discovered by many artists as Brazilian music has become fashionable.

The album is an absolute trasure box, there are so many styles of music here, from stuff which can only be Brazilian like Cravo e Canela with its Samba rhythms to deeply touching songs like San Vicente or even a Spanish language ballad in Dos Cruces. The lyrics are part of the charm here, and even if you don't understand them be assured that you are not listening to pretty music with ugly lyrics. They are pure poetry. In fact singing in Portuguese always demands a good amount of poetry as the language demands artistry in music or it just sounds ridiculous. The Brazilian accent of Portuguese actually makes the task of putting words to music easier because of its inflection, but it still demands art. English on the other hand can make almost anything sound good with the appropriate music, which is why it is the international language of music. If you had Justin Timberlake lyrics translated to Portuguese and sung they would just be laugh out loud funny even to fans of Justin. It is actually a game people make in Portugal, trying to translate foreign songs... with hilarious consequences.

Sorry for the digression. The album is beautiful and not only that but extremely influential, you can really see here a lot of later Brasilian music as well as how it seeped into English language music. I actually didn't know this album and it is one of those discoveries that will be cherished for many years to come. Milton's influences are wide, form the traditional music of Brasil to classical music and the Beatles you find everything here, tinged with a flavour of the tropics which never descends to tackyness but only adds intensity to all those genres. Really beautiful and powerful thing. Get it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. San Vicente
2. Tudo Que Voce Podia Ser
3. O Trem Azul
4. Cravo E Canela

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 1963 Milton Nascimento moved from Três Pontas, in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais, to the capital Belo Horizonte, in order to work in Belo Horizonte. He took a place to live at the Levy building. The Borges Family, including Márcio Borges, already lived there. One day, after watching François Truffaut's movie Jules et Jim three times in a row, Milton and Márcio started composing (Milton already played in some bars of Belo Horizonte): Márcio wrote the lyrics, and Milton wrote the music. Since then, Márcio always played a great role in the history of Clube de Esquina as lyricist, mainly together with, at a latter stage, Fernando Brant. The first album (Clube da Esquina) from 1972 was followed by another one in 1978 (Clube da Esquina no. 2), that contains tracks written by authors that were not part of the group (e.g., Chico Buarque). Clube da Esquina was, and is, surely based on the voice of Milton Nascimento (and, mainly at the beginning, Lô borges too), voice that many times takes the place of the instruments, making the composition as a contour to Milton's singing.

Only not bad instrumental version of a song from the album I got... it's Nada Será Como Antes and its also a great track. You can clearly see the Beatles here with something Brazilian in the mix:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, this album fascinates me... I used to make a long walk home after gym... after I put this on the mp3 player the walking home seemed no longer anymore...
I'm the guy playing on the youtube video :) I was checking the links and found this blog. My playing is no match for the greatness of those songs, but I record them anyway, for fun, cause I love the songs... BTW, I recorded "Um girassol da cor dos seus cabelos". I'd like to play the whole album, but some are really hard for me. Thanks for the link, take care.
-violaozim

Francisco Silva said...

Hi there!

You actually play the song really well, all other versions were pretty bad , so congratulations ! It's a great album.