Like Italian cooking, Luso-African music can be described as a few
key elements getting endlessly recombined. From Angola to Cape Verde
to Brazil, the pluck and buzz of a berimbau and asymmetrical rhythms
situate the listener even before the vocals come in.
You only have a
split second before João Selva’s voice pops in on his new single,
but those familiar elements—and a bouncy flute line that really
could’ve come from nowhere else—are used to great effect on
“Navegar.”
Check out the song and this endearing video right here:
The tune is the
title track of Selva’s upcoming album, out April 2 on Underdog
Records. The artist’s goal is a sort of travelogue, through
Brazilian musical styles and elsewhere across the Afro-Atlantic and
up into the Caribbean. Appropriately enough, navegar means "to sail."
This is the only song I’ve heard from it so far, but I’ll be eager to check it out when I have the chance. You can’t go wrong with the staples.
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