Mallu Magalhães
Pitanga

THE REVIEW

Brazil, 2014.

At the Mineirão stadium in Belo Horizonte, one of the two greatest disappointments in the history of the national green and yellow team unfolds, as they are soundly defeated in the home World Cup with a resounding 7-1 by Germany.

489 km away, in São Paulo, the guys from La Blogothèque record Mallu Magalhães while she plays three songs from her album "Pitanga" (released in 2011). On a bright evening in the mild winter of São Paulo, it doesn’t even seem they’re in the same country as the World Cup, like in a bubble isolating Mallu and the others from the dominant context.

Pitanga is a fruit of 2 or 3 cm in diameter and pleasantly sweet and sour, of various shades and widespread in various tropical areas.

Although the proposal is not solely inspired by Brazilian music, the success of "Pitanga" remained (almost exclusively) confined within national borders. At just 19 years old, Mallu already has 3 albums to her name, and this particular record cements her transition from a young promise to an established author.

8 songs in Portuguese and 4 in English, a linguistic dichotomy that is also reflected in the influences of the Brazilian singer-songwriter: on one side, the Brazilian tradition, on the other, the Anglophone pop-rock derived from the sixties.

"Sambina Bom" and "Ô, Ana" are episodes that cite and update the elegant atmospheres of bossanova. But there is little else of Brazil: for Magalhães, definitions such as "the new Gal Costa" or "the new Nara Leão" seem at least out of place.

"Velha e louca" lives with vintage sounds that evoke a musical past more European than tropicalist; "Lonely" features a structure clearly indebted to certain American folk; "Youhuhu" and "In the morning" have pleasantly childlike melodies, with a clear Beatles-like influence.

In "Pitanga", a delicate and mature songwriting (despite the young age) coexists perfectly with a never invasive production (listen to "Porque você faz assim comigo?") that respects the album's intimate tone. An album that gives greater international breath to MPB and that in the pop realm represents one of the best cases of female songwriting in recent years.