Estatica

2010 release. Estática is a recent masterpiece from Marcos Valle. Evoking his Carioca sound - where expansive orchestral sweep meets beautiful melody and complex harmony - Valle mixes perfect romantic bossa-pop with cinematic brass and strings and explores a six decade career that has swung between pop, bossa nova, delicate psychedelia, jazz, and funk. Many of these tracks sound strangely familiar, as if you've always known them, fresher and more immediate than ever in Valle's modern renaissance on Far Out Recordings. This album - Valle's fourth original recording for Far Out Recordings - features standout compositions including the instant classic "Vamos Sambar", the infectious jazz of "Baiao Maracatú", and the stunning duets and brass of "Papo de Maluco". Valle's soft scatting on the floaty "Arranca Toco"; cinematic orchestral "Novo Acorde"; and rich psych incidentals show that Valle is as creatively inspired - by Rio, music, and a lifetime of travel touring the globe - as he ever was as the original Ipanema beach poet. Produced by Daniel Maunick; recorded, mixed, and co- produced by David Brinkworth (Harmonic 33); and with Marcos' unparalleled arrangements, aided by horn and string arrangements by Jesse Sedoc Vocals, Valle is brought back with a widescreen bang. One of the second-wave of early bossa nova composers, following in the footsteps of Gilberto and Jobim, Valle is "the man who punched Marlon Brando and made millions". Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1943, Marcos began writing songs with his brother Paulo Sergio (who wrote lyrics to two tracks on Estática). As his reputation grew, he released his debut album Samba Demais for EMI Brazil (1964). It was his first release on Verve however that brought him well-deserved fame, Samba '68 (1968) becoming a Brazilian musical landmark thanks to tracks such as "Batucada" and "Crickets Sing For Anamaria". The early-seventies spawned two Valle masterpiece's, Garra (1971) and Vento Sul (1972), which combined, as MOJO states, the "cosmic expansion of Pink Floyd with the orchestral sweep of Ennio Morricone."