Vinicius Cantuária
Silva

Brazil is one of the countries most subject to stereotypes, oleography, and a one-dimensional image created for the use and enjoyment of superficial and predatory tourism, the offspring of a colonialist mentality unfortunately not yet extinct. From this point of view, Rio de Janeiro is the city in Brazil where all of this is amplified, where this distorted, amusement park-like, fundamentally false vision has caused more damage and is harder to eradicate (somewhat like what happens, making the necessary differences, with the city of Naples in Italy).
Many genuine Brazilian artists, including musicians, have always tried not so much to oppose this partial image as to account for the richness of their extremely varied, intertwined, mestizo national culture, which arises from the blending of three main civilizations representing three different continents. Vinicius Cantuária, a skilled guitarist and sensitive singer, born in Manaus in the Amazon but having lived since the age of seven in Rio, is certainly one of these.
His albums are a testament to how one can absorb the most diverse influences of this cultural amalgamation, grafting, onto his musical education, samba and bossa nova in particular, but also rock, new fermentations, courageously and respectfully opening up to contributions from other musical genres and other nations. With so many collaborations with high-ranking artists, our artist, now over fifty, shares a common desire to experiment, an idiosyncrasy toward the rigidity of genre divisions, and a love for Brazil: David Byrne, Brian Eno, Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, Laurie Anderson, the omnipresent Sakamoto, a citizen of the world. But the most fruitful encounter, the one that marked his career, was with Arto Lindsay, who produced the album "Sol na cara" in '96, a true landmark of modern Brazilian light music, with the collaboration, which was to be expected, of the Yellow Magic Orchestra.

In his latest work from last year, "Silva", Vinicius continues with commendable results on this narrow virtuous path between roots and innovation, ensuring the song form is always respected. Already the cover is indicative and makes one understand the different outlook of our artist. The subject of the photo is one that couldn't be more Brazilian: the Christ the Redeemer statue sits atop the Corcovado. But it's not the usual postcard landscape seen many times. There is no wide-angle, but a zoom that captures from below, cutting out the entire famous bay, the face of the statue, vivified with a skillful retouch, by a black mane and a long beard, making it lose much of its hieratic quality, making it resemble a hippie or a revolutionary. It almost seems to be a suggestion not to remain tied to prefabricated schemes, not to be satisfied with reassuring "panoramic" aerial views but to look closely, from other points of view, not only at Rio but at reality in its entirety.
The music and lyrics, for those in English he got a hand from his friend Arto, who also appears as a co-author of as many as three pieces, "Pena de Mim", "Reentry", and "Evening Rain", highlight his more intimate and lyrical vein. "A dor" (The pain), the song that opens the work masterfully, manages to express it in the best of ways, thanks also to the contribution of measured strings that increase the elegiac tone, creating, at the same time, a delicate contrast with samba-type percussion. In "The Bridge" the bossa nova is sung, but the disorienting trumpet of Jun Miyake, somewhat reminiscent of Hassell's in "Brilliant Trees" by Sylvian, and his samples create a "bridge" between ancient and modern.
In a work where small-great storms of emotions are brought into focus, the cover could only be "A felicidade" by Jobim&Morales, a classic to which our artist looks as a polar star ("A felicidade é como a pluma / Que o vento vai levando pelo ar / Voa tan leve / Mas tam a vida breve"), adding, however, a note of greater melancholy. In the aforementioned "Reentry" it seems like listening to a more "easy" Frisell, decided to sing about tormented loves. A light sprinkling of jazz helps make less painful "Evening Rain", the best track on the album in my opinion, a ballad, a poem in music that should break through even the most impenetrable hearts.

But there are other fragrances, there are other tasteful combinations that those who want to venture into the "forest" will discover. In the ideal seleçao of carioca musicians, despite fierce competition, Cantuária deserves a call-up; indeed, in certain meetings, when the rhythms are not too demanding, he could also perform as a starter. The only problem is that, having seen him at work, it will then be difficult to make him sit on the bench.