Critic's evaluation
A few months after announcing Café, Cigarro E Poesia, his debut EP, Cleyton Cézanne, from Bahia, is taking to new heights by releasing Molejo De Menina, his first studio album. Recorded in the historic city of Cachoeira (BA), the album took a year to complete.
A voice with a bittersweet timbre and slightly nasal touches makes the onomatopoeia of the clock ticking. Cleyton Cézanne, using an ambience from Rio, more precisely from the hills of the Marvelous City, makes the song sound like an exponent of pancadão, but a pancadão with curiously psychedelic veins. Capable of conveying the soft, seductive roll of reeling hips, Tic Tac Bum may seem to many to be an appealing, lascivious and therefore purely sexual and empty track. It's true that the song does make use of the bodily aspect, but even in this artifice, Tic Tac Bum plunges, from the sound of the clock, into metaphors that invite the listener to reflect on routine, on haste and, why not, on the sense of slavery that exudes from the seconds, the minutes, the hours. Of time.
It's hard not to notice the aesthetic influence of names like Banda Bejo, with special mention of their single Bate Late, in the structure of the introduction. Under an intense sunny sky, perspiring heat and a summer climate, the title track takes no time in providing axé as a base and inviting the listener to dance body to body. Swinging, with a mixture of electric guitar sonar and wind instruments and percussive elements giving the melody an attractive and exciting body, the title track communicates slight sips of reggae while maturing as an irresistibly tropical product. Cooled mainly by the opaque sound of the atabaque, the song is an ode not only to Bahia, but to regional culture, to the character of its broad and tireless receptivity. It's secularism fused with cosmopolitanism. It's the legacy dialoguing directly with the gratitude and pride of being a son of the Afro.
The xote, in itself, is a contagious rhythm. And here, it is presented in a soft, politely sensual form and with a sweetly floral scent thanks to the sharpness of the accordion. Você Mel is pure romance with a taste of love apples and governed by a captivating naivety that is set at the São João festival. It's hard not to make the listener feel nostalgic when they remember their first love, their first kiss and the nervousness of the first touch between their hands. In Você Mel, love is in the air amidst the June gang.
The xote resurfaces with force in this melody that maintains the consistency of Northeastern musical regionalism. With the tinkling of the triangle as the main element to achieve this feat, the track also relies on Cézanne's whistles as a way of creating a firmer link between melody and listener. Remarkable, Café, Cigarro E Poesia continues the plot of Você Mel and brings the characters into a more mature and stable relationship, but still governed by unconditional and unwavering love. Here, it's as if the São João's festival has been extended to the beachfront. With a sky governed by a summer sunset, Café, Cigarro E Poesia follows the couple in love walking with their feet in the sand as they are washed by the lapping of the waves.
The sound of the waves not only causes a sensation of freshness. It also brings with it a sense of comfort and a curious protection. Alongside the sweet sharpness of the ukulele, comfort takes on nostalgic and soft silhouettes as a reggae song full of tenderness matures. However, Te Amo Meu Bebê closes the romantic trio begun in Você Mel with a distant storyline that metaphorizes the end of a relationship, a closure bathed in the feeling of longing. Like a couple who love each other unconditionally, Te Amo Meu Bebê brings the hope of reconciliation amidst the chaos of the end. The encouragement of forgiveness and the reciprocity of a second chance.
The smoke from the chimney of the train driver's car can be seen reaching the roof of the train station. The incomprehensible buzz of parallel conversations between pedestrians sounds like a commonplace scene, but so cartoonishly important, especially in the 50s. With only the ambient sound of horns and the movement of train wheels, A Estação is an interlude that communicates routine, that moment that is lived on autopilot because it is the link between two moments of the same day. The rush, the commitments. The long, fast steps. The beggars lying on the ground asking for alms. Cigarettes, money, smoke. The ticking clock. A Estação is a snapshot of a moment that symbolizes the sickness of the 21st century.
An embryonically Disney-esque waltz is born from the fluttering sonar of the violin. Then the freshness takes on a latent air from the floral sharpness of the clarinet, which gives way to a soft and inviting MPB. Between the rasps of bossa nova and the samba base, Samba De Seu Zé presents itself as a melancholic avant-garde song that, in its essence, brings the Brazilian tradition of not being a people who give up at the first slip. With lambada refinements, the song, despite being narrated with a whispered vocal, brings imposing persistence and determination from a character who represents a whole people who don't give up on their goals and face any adversity, whether it comes from retaliation or any kind of manifestation of intolerance.
It's funny, or rather curious, that Cleyton Cézanne chose the instrumental Samba De Seu Zé to close Molejo De Menina. After all, the melody brings a mixture of melancholy and softness to a setting sky full of tears. Yet those same tears are governed by a sense of hope and the determination to make the new dawn a new opportunity to make things happen, to make a change. To transform what has become a monotony. And this melody, now more easily tasted, features samba, bossa nova, pagode, MPB, lambada and even merengue. All merging into an entirely Latin atmosphere that transforms the passing of the credits into a joyfully contagious experience.
Despite being made up of tracks that have already appeared on his debut EP, Molejo De Menina is material that shows maturity, but without leaving the sensitivity of an individual who breathes affection, care and love. After all, in this work, Cleyton Cézanne doesn't just speak through his brain. He makes his heart his lyrical and melodic inspiration.
Once again partnering with Eridan Lelis on the sound constructions, Cézanne offers the listener material that moves from affection to resistance. From pride to gratitude. From the simple to the well-crafted. It's no wonder that in Molejo De Menina each sound functions as an extrasensory journey, a teleportation to environments that translate the non-verbalized words of the sound.
From the romantic trilogy Você Mel, Café, Cigarro E Poesia and Te Amo Meu Bebê, the listener also has access to works that mix concepts of resistance, self-confidence and predestination, such as Samba De Seu Zé. In addition, Cézanne offers a glimpse into the origins of Afro-Brazil, full of pride, compassion and gratitude for the ancestors who bravely fought to keep their essence alive. And this is present in the title track.
Even more so than on his debut EP, Cézanne has definitely taken experimental flights on Molejo De Menina. After all, in the eight tracks, the musician, together with Lelis, takes the listener through psychedelic pancadão, MPB, bossa nova, xote, samba, pagode, lambada, merengue and axé, making the album a true Latin work.
Rounding off the technical scope is the cover art. Also signed by Cézanne, it is a communal work that alludes to a sense of unity. Adorned with various colors in pastel tones, each outline of people, as well as their dispositions, give an interpretation of equality and respect, even from the point of view of differences that may be at odds with social conservatism.
Released on 12/08/2023 in an independent way, Molejo De Menina is the sun, it's dance, it's pride, it's gratitude. It is material that, in the midst of regional cosmopolitanism, gives voice to the heart while freeing the individual from the prisons of the modern world, such as time, conservatism and intolerance in its various facets.
