Kaatayra
Caminhos de Agua

THE REVIEW

Kaatayra is the name Caio Lemos has given to his one-man band, a fusion of folk and the more atmospheric sides of black metal.

This project, through its sixth album, Caminhos de Água, brings to light the indigenous and African roots of Brazilian music by confronting them with extreme Western musical forms.

In practice, this is atypical black metal stripped of distortion and smoothness, retaining only three elements, used sparingly: blast beat, tremolo picking, and scream. The rest of the sonic framework is suffused with Brazil in its most traditional form: sunny, naive Latin strings; hypnotic, distantly tribal Afro-Brazilian polyrhythms; and relaxing indigenous woodwinds, cradled by recordings of various currents of water, direct witnesses to a forgotten heritage—one perhaps nobody cares about anymore.

With a good dose of Fitzcarraldo-esque epic self-satisfaction.

On paper, this musical encounter is rather unsettling, juxtaposing worlds whose potential for dialogue is hard to imagine. Yet, with the canoe provided, we explore the veins of Caminhos de Água (Waterpaths) with unusual curiosity, paddling upstream on some rivers and streams before letting ourselves be carried by others.

The twelve minutes of "Rio sem Nome" (River Without a Name) turn our curiosity into certainty.

They make it clear at once that strings do not have to be electrified to overwhelm and transcend; that no cry of the soul can disturb the force of nature, which is all-powerful.

This force breathes vigorously through every instrument, like aerial roots embracing the contours of the notes.

The shadowy compositions then follow fluid, instinctive structures, evolving between millennial repetitions, polyrhythmic torrents, and mutual contemplations: the environment is the subject of this album. And its author is imbued with the Amazonian rainforests.
Prepare yourself for an atmospheric ambient procession that flows into post-rock inspired compositions, built on repetitive cyclical grooves and dense atmospheric backgrounds that slowly generate culminating crescendos.

The journey begins.