I never quite know where I stand with with jazz. The endless, drifting circular loops of sound, subversive grooves and syncopated rhythms are like having the same conversation over and over, with slightly different turns of phrase and emphasis on different points.
Brazilian psychedelia band Boogarins’ interpretation of this intimate interchange saunters from soft whistling and the warm murmur of trancey beats, through the casual discourse of bluesy guitar harmonies and synthy chatter, punctuated by harder rhythmic rock.
Their singing in Portuguese distances me even further from a full grasp on their supernova-psyche-sound, but it’s no matter really, as the dark warmth of Camden’s Jazz Café is all enveloping with an ambience of candlelight, cocktails and bass-reverb that makes your chest burn.
The trippy beats of Boogarins’ first album Manual Ou Guia Livre De Dissolução Dos Sonhos (2015) located the four-piece as modern masters of psyche-rock - but these guys are more than 60s beats and bangles.
Lead singer Dino Almeida is infectious, his voice soft, high and honeyed as he smiles with big teeth that shine for days, swallows the mic and pacifies the fans shouting “Cuba Libre!”. He uses his voice as an instrument, imitating the sounds an electro keyboard device might make.
Presumably they play tracks from Manual, their second album Lá Vem A Morte (translated as Here Comes Death) as well as their latest - Sombrou Dúvida. I really have no idea, but their fans seem to come alive with the more wordy tracks, whooping and singing along. But even without any understanding of the lyrics, and with a tendency to lose concentration rather a lot, I can still appreciate the bands’ addition of experimental electronica to an already kaleidoscopic texture.
Whatever the words are that get lost in translation, the jangley, instrumental meltdowns, whirling breathe of psyche-jazz with a mild pop edge all amounts to a musical vocabulary that makes up a surprisingly sophisticated sonic conversation in which Boogarins seem to have found their voice – and it's one I'd like to keep on whispering in my ear.
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