Portuguese artist Serpente (a.k.a. Bruno Silva) sent me this album and I’m happy he did. Like flipping through a book, like going through a bunch of mail, like hammering a nail into a wall until it fits, lazily, suddenly, something jumps off the page, you see your own name, and the monotonous movements of the day are grabbed back into attention.
The four tracks on his new Rituais 101 EP do feel especially attentive to the little surprises that interrupt the hourly plod. Plodding is percussive and percussion is what these songs explore most of all. Multifarious forms of electro-acoustic beats are presented through long, quick loops (intentionally oxymoronic) of meditatively danceable techno (another one, because the idea of the oxymoron really strikes me: confusing, lively, a few degrees removed, as someone hammering at your door way too early in the morning.)
These swaths of loops are broken and supported by little shocks of affected voices, strings, sounds like a spoon hitting a tin, or a synth programmed to do just a tiny bit. In many ways, I’m moving to it.
Click through the link below to get the digital EP, and buy the cassette a little later this month via Tormenta Electrica, a brand new label out of São Paulo, Brazil.
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