"TiaAvô"

by Sã Bernardo & Aires

Rosalía, La Monte Young, Farrah Abraham, Daniel Lopatin, Catarina Branco, Miles Davis, Dina, Lorenzo Senni or Rabu Mazda are just a few of the names we can find throughout 'TiaAvô''s sprawling liner notes. Ghosts and real bodies, both unhinged and close, from high culture to its most popular forms, with all the pit stops between without ever sticking to the narrow and grey existence of the middlebrow, whose direct and referable influence draws a gluttonous and intuitive map not completely removed from post-modern bounds but without any of the smug irony and slick self-awareness that might imply. Respect! Summoned from shared experiences between Sã Bernardo and Aires in a conversational process where Terry Riley's 'Shri Camel' appears in the same continuum as Mariah Carey's 'We Belong Together', 'TiaAvô' creates this sort of contemporary paralel oral tradition. Choral Hyperpop? Guess we've been further from that when 'Maio' and its radio edit elevate themselves in an hypnotic state where mantra, prayer, chant and pop hooks mingle in a miasmah of processed vocals, supreme auto-tune and digital poliphony unattached from any particular cartography or legacy. Down to earth, that aura is mirrored in both versions of 'Europa', where some of the tropes we most commonly associate with both creators rise to the surface - Bernardo's jittery bowed double bass and Aires' droney massages - but are given a new context. Between these two dimensions, the catchy singalong gliding above the synth waterfalls of 'TiaMar' and the poppy verses of 'Coração Sónico' drowning in a haze of distortion to only resurface, right at the end of the record, as a projection, one last call. A record without much obvious parallels but still resonating with these times and their most vital creations, 'TiaAvô' discards futile attempts at uber-conceptualization to reveal itself and to us as heard somewhere, one "path of truth". For surely it is. Valid and honest in that quest. Or maybe just popular liturgy from the present, which feels more and more like one possible future.

Bruno Silva

Recorded in january and february of 2021 at Cafetra's Studio by Leonardo Bindilatti and at Desterro by Bruno Pereira and Bernardo Álvares

Jewel Case CD

Mixed and mastered by Luís Severo
Artwork and design by Mafalda Melim
Photo by Pedro Jafuno

We wish to thank Leonardo Bindilatti, Raphael Soares, Dominique Matelson, Domingos Coimbra, Luís Severo, Desterro, Norberto Lobo, Yaw Tembe, António M. Silva.