Kiko Loureiro
No Gravity

A beautiful table: noisy, eclectic, and colorful. The superstitious say that thirteen is unlucky. However, that number of diners, gathered almost playfully on a spring evening in 2005, created a shifting, jovial, and particularly welcoming atmosphere. As often happens in such nostalgic gatherings, the meeting was organized by a couple of people ("Dilemma" and the enigmatic "Pau de Arara"): the most energetic of the group. The ones most attached to the good old days. Of Angra. All that was missing was Matos's voice in those entanglements of six strings, polyrhythmic beats, and folklore to turn back almost 10 years.

The most beautiful, "Choro de Crianca", is sitting in the corner; almost in seclusion, as if this secluded position could protect her from glances. Shy, reserved, and petite; barely a minute tall when she lifts her eyes and speaks, she enchants. It's as if you're inside the wooden heart of the acoustic guitar; the notes bounce back sharply between the walls and completely satisfy, returning to the ears. We wish she would speak again, but instead, she sits there, right at the end of the CD, and doesn't get up. Her neighbor, "Endangered Species", tries to get noticed by telling one of his exaggerated and amusing anecdotes. Words and gestures, scale solos, and drums almost stumble chasing each other in a crescendo. He catches his breath, to increase attention, with ethnic rhythms: takes a big sip from the pint and starts again with greater strength until the aesthetic finale's laughter with wild sweeping and tight riffing that's somewhat an end in itself. The dinner continues. There’s time to create a light atmosphere, without forcing or pressure. "Escaping" is able to melt you with its smile, and tonight, luckily, it must have had a bit too much to drink. Its incisors, a wonderful sight, are continuously visible, nicely evoked by fluid melodic lines of well-crafted solos. "Beautiful Language" cools everything, casting melancholic memories over the curved and gnarled wooden table. Electric and acoustic merge here with juicy maracas on the side. He has always been strange. "No Gravity" enjoys teasing the diners, tossing paper balls here and there: the plucking of strings, the phrasing in tight, cheerful chords. "My Dark Tranquillity" is physically there with them but seems to be in another dimension mentally: almost doesn't eat, and with a delicious and delicate tapping, he sings about his mysterious, ambiguous, and intriguing life. And there he is, right in the center, "Enfermo": he always gulped down coffee by the bunch, and in fact, he is impatient. He seems like a husband outside the delivery room. His leg keeps moving: relentless syncopation for a sinuous piece, a snake, untamable, capable of alternating starts with continuous halts.

Listening to an instrumental CD is a bit like watching TV during the Olympics, only for national pride, a diving competition, artistic gymnastics, or all those contests where originality is minimized and what matters is brushing perfection. It gives me no thrill. As difficult and out of the ordinary as the evolutions may be, they seem meaningless, and their convoluted and objective complexity blends and trivializes into more or less photocopied movements of athletes in series, ready to replicate what was mistaken or nailed by the previous competitor. There's no air, no space. I change channels.

The CDs of the so-called guitar heroes are for me approximately the same thing. Evolutions, quick fingers running on the neck of their ultrashiny six-string for ever more astonishing and polished doodles. Practically a DVD of keepie-uppies by a Brazilian soccer player. A yawn juice. So you'll forgive me if I took it for granted that the author of the album I've already described to you, Kiko Loureiro of Angra, knew how to make his fingers travel with a good dose of mastery. This is not the crux, but the sine qua non for venturing into such a close and showy genre.

I believe that the best compliments for a piece of work are not those from obsessed/blind fans, but rather those that come, unexpectedly, from those who are mostly allergic to that kind of sound. The other instrumental CDs I discarded, lost, or they will be here or there under quite a bit of gray shroud that now blends with the environment. "No Gravity" stands out and astounds me every time because almost 5 years have passed. That's not a short time, as a few months are enough for a CD to go from passionate red to indifferent gray. The voice can be a comfortable lifeline to hold on to: when the melodies don't fully convince, a good interpretation can round out the gaps, like an actor's performance in a slightly limping screenplay. The fact that with some frequency, this "No Gravity" always ends up in the player, surprises me. It happened today, at 6 in the morning, while I was going to find that X marked on the map at home to start my new winter excursion. Thus, between one hairpin turn and another, a maneuver between the icy snow and a curse for the current snail, the disc made a somersault and a half on itself before I put on boots and seal skins to enjoy a ski run in silence. Kiko neither shows off like a peacock nor performs a tracklist of Himalayan efforts. He alternates between stick and carrot, a pinch of cheerfulness and melancholy. To do this, he uses his elegant technique of tapping, sweeping, and arpeggios without giving the impression of performing to receive mere acclaim for the technical gesture. Cleverly, he does not rely on a drum machine as a crutch but ensures the chameleonic oak Mike Terrana, capable of empowering the various breaks that dot this album.

I detest the genre, I recommend it to you.