«Saturno Mágico» happened when the Brazilian-American power trio São Paulo Underground aligned their chakras with the Tenerife electronic pranksters Tupperwear for a live session, captured in a disused kerosene tank in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands in November 2016 after a week-long residency together. This was a wild jam that embraced anything – tropical jazz, Chicago post-rock, prog-rock and hypnotic, head-scratching psych chants, as the cover art by Evan Crankshaw radiates.
The São Paulo Underground was born at the end of Chicagoan trumpeter Rob Mazurek’s eight-year Brazilian sojourn and is a tropical incantation of the Chicago Underground – Mazurek and drummer-percussionist Chad Taylor (later became a trio, quartet and orchestra), now with Mazurek playing with drummer Mauricio Takara and keyboards player Guilherme Granado. Tupperwear is an electronic duo of keyboards player Mladen Kurajica and guitarist-electronics player Daniel García, focused on linking electronics to sensory exploration through textures, noise and polyrhythms. Each of these five musicians adds synths, electronics and live sampling to their arsenal.
The six pieces on the «Saturno Mágico» EP suggest sensual, kaleidoscopic textures that adopt an inclusive approach where anything goes as long as all are having great fun. «Saturno Mágico» often sounds like an enigmatic and highly sensual ritual, more than a free-flowing, experimental jam. Sounds of jungles and rainforests blend organically with sensual, vintage synths, and float above atmospheric guitar lines, polyrhythms and distant voices on the opening «Papa Gamba». The following «Fajana» offers a seductive and tribal dancescape that flirts with post-rock and raw electronics. «Guanabanach» adds exotic voices, tongues and sounds to this intriguing recipe and propels it into a catchy pop song led by García’s cyclical electric guitar lines and Mazurek’s cornet. «Los Realejos underground» sounds like it is situated in a magical ritual deep inside a mysterious forest. «Hal 2845» spins this session into futurist outer space and backward into a tribal past with its hypnotic, dramatic pulse. The last «Perenquén» cements the hypnotic-meditative spirit of this sensual session, rooted with arresting grooves but flies joyfully into open, shiny skies.
Open your chakras to the unique alignment of São Paulo Underground and Tupperwear and pray for more such uplifting meetings.
Eyal Hareuveni
Rob Mazurek (cor, modular synth), Mauricio Takara (dr, cavaquinho, elec), Guilherme Granado (keys, synth, sampler), Mladen Kurajica (synth, keys), Daniel Garcia (elec, live sampling, g, v)
