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With home studio boys like Prefuse 73 and
L Pierre making some of the best digitalised
records of 2005, you may be forgiven for not looking
further afield for other master manipulators of music
software. However, curio seekers may want to check out
the first album of Brazil's Apollo Nove.
Res Inexplicata Volans showcases the soundscaping
skills of the antique-synth nut, and over twelve lush
pieces, the in-demand producer might even have a
slow-burning crossover hit on his hands. Particularly
if the world agrees that its been waiting for dub and
bossa nova recasts of Glen Campbell and
AC/DC mothballs (Children Of The Sun and I'm A
Rocker respectively). And on this showing, there's no
reason why it shouldn't.
Apollo Nove isn't sailing this particular spaceship
alone of course. Ras Inexplicata Volans
recruits the help of chanteuse Cibelle, Seu
Jorge (City Of God's Knockout Ned),
Air engineer Yann Artaud and is chops-solid
with Latin veteran players adding multiple shades of
technicolour vibrancy.
Like Sue Jorge's Cru album earlier this
year, there's more than a hint of a keen eye on the
European market, with echoes of Viennese music maker's
Kruder & Dorfmeister's border-crossing
sensibilities. Opener Mr Right Now exudes rootless
echoey exotica but is no more than a taster for what
is to come.
Deceptively diverse, Apollo Nove is capable of
shifting stylistic moods within the same track without
losing any narrative flow. Yage Cameras smoulders with
effects-laden afro-latino funk before Cibelle's vocal
signals a gear change into David Byrne / Brian Eno
style shamanism. Joe Meek-ish moongazing is
suggested before Inexplicta slips into its woozy,
Hammond-infused presence, and while arcane drum loops
(reminiscent of nothing less than Timmy Thomas'
classic Why Can't We Live Together?) underpin
the Moon Safari textures of 86.
Though a world away from the fuzz-pedal
psychedelics of Sau Paolo's Os Mutantes, Res
Inexplicata Volans harks back to the 60's art /
intellectual Tropicalismo movement once spearheaded by
Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. And its
just possible that living in the world's most
economically divided city has had an effect on Apollo
Nove's muse.
War, the obligatory dig at Dubya and his cronies
(is it in the musician's union that every album has to
have one now?), posits blissy atmospherics as an
antidote for international aggression. Once you've
heard the pre-emptive strike of War's balm-like
keyboards, you'll know which is preferable.
And if Apollo Nove is keen on changing attitudes,
he needn't try too hard. Between his laser-soft synth
pulses and the snowdrift churn of the bass, Seu
Jorge's cooing vocalisms on Ensaboar Voce are of such
harmonic sweetness as to make Ian Paisley suck face
with Gerry Adams. And as slyly erotic latin space
ballads go, Ensoboar Voce is hard to beat.
Before the stellar similes get too much, it should
be noted that Res Inexplicata Volans ("unexplained
flying thing") is Vatican lexicon for a UFO. At the
very least, Apollo Nove's premier collection is proof
that it's not such a lonely planet after all.
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