Critic's evaluation
Distance and the sudden acquisition of a sense of belonging led singer-songwriter Gabriel Milliet not only to leave the experience of being an immigrant in Holland to return to Brazil, but also to announce his debut solo album. Entitled UM, the work is sold as full of textures, climates and ambiences.
It's as soft as velvet and as touching as the maternal act of lovingly telling a bedtime story. Fresh, but also full of an interesting but not dramatic melancholy, it is the guitar that dictates the initial energy of the song. Then, like a student, a diligent pupil, Biel Basile appears on the drums, drawing introspective, respectful, light and sparkling phrases from a dry, syncopated kick drum, offering insights into the rhythmic cadence. Comfortable and with textures of a sweet and tinkling mix through the sonars of the synthesizer and the piano of Jarno Van Es, Silêncio Brutal is narrated by a deep voice, but at the same time soft and with nasal touches that introduces a mix between indie and MPB. It's Gabriel Milliet, with his timbre capable of refreshing in the listener's mind the voices of Jorge Vercillo and Djavan, as well as the delicacy of Tiago Iorc, bringing well-executed falsetto and a nostalgic lyrical interpretation. Not least, Silêncio Brutal is like the cry of a lonely heart, not for romance, ardent kisses or passionate touches, but for family, friends and the place where you feel you belong. Distance can be cruel when it makes it difficult to refresh the pain of longing and that's exactly what happens in Silêncio Brutal: the echo of the emptiness that hides the cradle, the companionship and the sociability that once shaped the essence of the individual whose voice is heard in the song.
Ambiguous. The awakening of the new song is hypnotic to the point of bringing up two possible situations: waking up and being able to be conscious in a dream. Possible impressions from a piano with sharp, icy keys, they give way to a soft, comforting freshness when the guitar comes in. It's curious how, with so little, the listener can feel the breeze coming in through the open crack of the car window amidst the road adorned by a turquoise sky. O Sol E O Mar, with its aesthetic minimalism, is almost like a mantra that suggests re-energizing, an equalizing of emotions based on the brightness of the sea and the freshness of the waves. Less touching than the previous song, but with a great degree of sentimentality, especially due to the moving waltz of Lucas Bernardo's violins, O Sol E O Mar is about overcoming life's challenges. It's the launching, through the waves and the wind, of desires to be fulfilled in the tomorrow that is already coming.
The combination of the bass and the delicacy of the guitar has a curious effect. There are notes of folk. An initial joy. But, at the same time, there's a longing and nostalgic look that is transfigured by the sonar produced by the string duo. With equally bucolic aromas, Carta De Natal is presented with a harmony built between Milliet's overlapping vocals that helps with the emotional range that permeates this plot of loneliness, longing and self-knowledge. Carta De Natal is almost like a continuation of Silêncio Brutal, but with a focus on the singer's act of looking more deeply at himself and not at what the absence of others makes him feel.
Intoxicating and nauseating at the same time, the first sonars of the new horizon give way to a sound structure guided by the hollow drumbeats of the bongô and the fluctuating syncopation between acoustic guitar and guitar. Without any kind of pressure and backed by a maximum of torpor, Grande Hotel São João, due to the way the lyrical interpretation is pronounced, could well be understood as a work taken from the supergroup Pequeno Cidadão. Uncompromising, light and with curiously youthful touches, it is more than an ode to the national culture of the June festivities. Between the textures of the pau-de-chuva and the folkloric high-pitched blowing of the flute, it is an ode, a canonization of the city of São Paulo and its imperfections.
The acoustic guitar brings the bass tone as a welcome note to the new scenario. Although the icy breath of Teresa Costa's flute brings curious tones of a delicacy that takes the listener back to the 1960s, the bass continues to be a predominant factor in this atmosphere that is gradually showing itself to be fluttering. Vento De Oyá, with the occasional subtle touches of bass corpulence from Pedro Ivo Ferreira's bass, has an indigenous, natural, pure character that transcends the sonars of the caxixi and the bell, elements that give sudden textures to this plot that presents a character belonging to life, to freedom. A character who, even though physically distant, and even though he goes through disturbing storms, has an unbreakable link with his roots. Vento De Oyá is the storm, the chaos, but also the subsequent bonanza that comes after the disharmony.
She's sad, downcast. Slightly tearful. The minimalist melody that begins with acoustic guitar and drums is linear and soft, but it carries a kind of nostalgia governed by regret. Rua Vitória is a poem. A poem sung, set to music, about São Paulo. About possibilities. About the convergence of future and past in a utopian dream in search of the new, for a break from monotony. A verbiage that assumes to be one more, among many, to call the listener to action, to life. To movement. All in a great shuttle of softness, gelidity and torpor. An intoxicating melody that makes the listener see far beyond the static wall of the room while listening to Rua Vitória.
The sweet softness feels comfortable and inviting. The maturing melody sounds like an ecstatic mantra about the future, the past and the present. Giving the listener the idea that it's a romantic track, which, deep down, its plot contains a mixture of sadness, overcoming and the need for the pain of breaking up in order to be able to walk steadily along the path of self-knowledge, Futuro is the narrative of a character who has chosen to move away in order to see the wider world and understand himself. To find himself. To mature.
More organic and with more rhythmic elements, this song comes with an invigorating joy. A soft, inviting smile at the pastel tones brushed across the melody. In a compositional style that mixes influences from Arnaldo Antunes, Nando Reis and Raul Seixas, Carta De Ano Novo, unlike Carta De Natal, features a character who is already aware of himself, of his transformation over the time spent living with distance. Even so, she harbors a longing to return, but not a permanent return, just a fleeting one. Momentary. Carta De Natal is a written record of this longing, long enough for the character to be able to update his achievements and feel the breezes of a land long kept in his memory.
It's inertia. The ultimate in minimalism. It's the light of the sun rising in the distance, illuminating the garden and making the scent of the flowers levitate and aromatize the air through the sweet murmurs of the flute, breaking the doldrums of the sombre guitar. Da Paz Inevitável is the conquest of overcoming the past and the ability to enjoy the present. It's the tranquillity of knowing you're ready to throw yourself into the new, while the past remains as happy and joyful pages to revisit again and again. Pages that are inevitable in the plot of this story that is Gabriel Milliet's life, mind and heart.
It is a compilation of poems set to music. UM are sonorous, soft and comforting verbiage about who Gabriel Milliet is, what he thinks, what he feels and what he longs for as an individual, as an artist and as a member of a broad conjuncture called history. A story that involves family, friends, time and belonging.
It's the union of nine chapters in a book that dissects the heart of this outsider. Someone who wanted to see from afar the breadth that actually remained within his own body. Mind. Soul. Heart. It's nostalgia talking to time, talking to maturity, talking to transformation. It's sadness talking to loneliness and delirium in well-assimilated needs.
ONE is precisely what Milliet is. He is one. An individual in search of an answer. A truth. A sigh. A relief. A discovery that leads to, perhaps, many other questions that would generate many other answers. UM is the unit perceiving itself as belonging to a group. And from that group comes the joy of feeling like you belong to something and the realization that the one is part of something bigger called the cycle of coexistence, which becomes a community. Which becomes a society. That becomes São Paulo. That becomes Brazil. The country that has never stopped embracing its children who don't shy away from the struggle to understand themselves.
To support this set of storylines that is UM, Gabriel Milliet teamed up with João Milliet as mixing engineer. Through him, the album sounded like a true and mature exponent of MPB. Brazilian popular music that speaks to the past and references the present by fusing elements of indie music. All in a well-balanced and crystal-clear way.
Rounding off the technical scope is the cover art. Signed by G. Milliet himself, it is a black and white self-portrait that symbolizes the mourning of what was once Gabriel Milliet. In this sense, the cover symbolizes the metamorphosis of this Brazilian who went to discover himself overseas and realize his true place.
Released on 09/01/2023 via Matraca Records, UM is the truth of an individual in search of himself. It is the union of textures in the search for answers about life, about time. About his place. UM is where Gabriel Milliet dissects and understands himself, from his fears to his deepest longings, all of which rest on the same pillar. A pillar made up of friends, family, São Paulo and a major cradle from which he should never have left: Brazil.
