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.

share:  Facebook | Digg | del.icio.us | more

Mercury Prize 2009 nominees