Critic's evaluation
A native of Sergipe living in Rio de Janeiro. This is how the singer, composer and musician Tori is introduced to the public. It is with this credit that she decides to take off on a solo career with Descese, her debut album. To further communicate her detachment from following pre-established standards, the singer dares to release the material in two parts, Descese (Lado A) being the first of them.
An arid and inhospitable climate is built in the reflections of the humidity of the listener's eyes. The desolation is, in this scope, a feeling that embraces the spectator in a strangely welcoming way. Of evident suspense, the low strumming of Tori's guitar forms an even more palpable scenography, as if an enigmatic character were walking, sweaty, unbelieving, crestfallen and ragged, through the rocky and boiling terrain of the sertão. Surprisingly, an almost ghostly narrative constructed in four voices begins to dissect the reality of extreme poverty in the interior regions of the northeast. Without fear of shocking or causing imbroglio, Água Viva shows, without filter and with latent drama from the minimalist union of Domenico Lancellotti's percussion with Bruno Di Lullo's synthesizer, what a hand needs to do to have something to feed its offspring when it has nothing. Absolute scarcity makes human beings act by instinct and almost savagely. It is during these hours that one proves who has humility and humanity and who only cares for his own comfort.
The percussion is heard in the background like a kind of shamanic mantra, while the soft sharpness of Tori's voice fuses with Bruno Berle's bittersweetness in a timidly reggae-ska melody. With the introduction of the brass duo Aquiles Moraes and Everson Moraes on trumpet and trombone, respectively, the melodic softness is firmed up in such a way as to flirt even with flamenco. The title track is a product that, in its swinging introspection, describes a spiritual and extrasensory experience of visiting deep environments on Earth. A mythology, to say the least, intriguing.
Thiago Queiroz's flute, equalized in its stridency and velvet, causes an omen of icy discomfort in the listener from the creation of a hypnotic climate and dangerous swing. With mixtures of mariachi and Arabic music, Hybris is a song introduced under numbing and psychedelic interpretation that narrates the sensitivity and purity of the body. It is like an ode to life by the simple act of feeling the sunlight delivering principles of lucidity.
The Brazilianness comes back stronger from the purposefully dissonant MPB promoted between the synchrony of the dry and subtly distorted riff of Bem Gil's guitar with the acoustic guitar. Supported by percussive elements like caxixi and bumbo creating a notion of movement, Eco is a song that seeks, in a stunning way, also because of the linear stridency of Eduardo Manso's synthesizer at the end of the song, to communicate the process of self-knowledge beyond the judgment of others. It is like walking through the unconscious and discovering pieces of yourself never found and studied.
Continuing with the hypnotic environment, the introductory minimalism of Morada makes the listener delirious in his own unconsciousness from a mixture of sensations ranging from numbness to nausea. Like an echoing mantra about existence, Morada is a song with a surprising melodic turning point. In the same cadence, it impresses by introducing in its guise instruments of completely different spectrums. While the booming blast of the bombardino fuses with the melodious highs of the alto and baritone saxophones to create a classy, avant-garde modernist notion, the synthesizer of Manso and Zé Ruivo imprints Morada with actuality. A song that, with Bianca Godoi's drumming, also has an invigorating smoothness.
Softness, freshness, and tranquillity. The Brazilian sound of the agogô tinkling and the caxixi shaking fused with the soft rock swing produced by Gil and Fábio Aricawa's guitars brings a contagious and welcoming beach atmosphere to the introductory melody of Travessias Maiores. As a song that proposes a dialogue with transformations, maturation, and changes, it also communicates the liquidity of life and the unpredictability of destiny.
It is the vanguard of MPB. With its stylistic fusions, purposefully dissonant passages, and baroque climaxes that communicate influences ranging from Anavitória to Lana Del Rey, Descese (Side A) is soft material, yet intriguing in its analytical and dramaturgical proposals.
Speaking about life, existence, and how to deal with change, Tori surprises by bringing instrumentation uncommon to conventional MPB. Artistic at a higher level, she fuses classical sounds into a nationally popular base that mixes samba and bossa nova with similar, but not close, genres such as ska, reggae, and soft rock.
Catching attention with the unfiltered, critical and intentionally uncomfortable opening of Água Viva, Tori already shows herself to be an artist untethered to what can be defined as radio or commercially popular. With her tight diction and often introspective to the point that it is difficult to understand what she is saying, she brings in Descese (Lado A) the enigmatic, the suspenseful, the critical and the dramatic.
Closing the technical scope comes the cover art. Signed by Elisa Maciel, it brings an evident Renaissance character. However, it shocks by bringing Tori's bust filled with what appears to be a representation of the Covid-19 virus in a clear allusion to human impotence. Still, it is an artwork that matches the EP's proposal to discuss life and its fragility.
Released on 11/11/2022 via PWR Records, Descese (Lado A) is the vanguard of MPB. Modernity merging with the classic. The audacity breaking the artistic-conservative doldrums. A work that shocks, reflects, and relaxes. It is life in its maximum fluidity.
