Dengue e a volta de Soturno

Dengue e a volta de Soturno
DENGUE E A VOLTA DE SOTURNO
  • country:Brazil
  • region:Pernambuco
  • label:not signed
  • type:Solo
  • gender:male
  • instrumentation:instrumental, electronic
  • artist posted by:Babel Produções Artisticas

Line up

  • Dengue (Bass)

A Volta de Soturno II

Nação Zumbi's bassist's first authorial work, Soturno also marks Dengue's transformation beyond his original instrument, embracing lo-fi electronics with high doses of reggae

There is an unknown planet that orbits Earth every 50 years and travels a multidimensional path that impacts various cosmic levels, including the lives of terrestrial individuals. Every half century, planet Soturno completes one round around our planet and gives rise to personality deviations that cause behavioral changes in each of us.

All this sidereal mythology arose in the mind of Alexandre Dengue, bassist for Nação Zumbi, as he began to experiment with his own compositions for the first time. Away from his original group because of the pandemic, he found himself challenged to work solo for the first time. He had never wanted to release an album as an instrumentalist precisely for this reason, he had always seen himself as part of a collective no matter the size of the team he joined, whether it was Nação Zumbi's sound factory or side projects, such as the now classic 3 na Massa or his collaborations with Angolan rapper Luaty Beirão, aka Ikonoklasta, and Portuguese producer Pedro Coquenão, aka Batida.

After decades carrying the Nação Zumbi groove with its heavy and precise lines, Dengue found himself separated from his instrument for the first time during the pandemic. “I think it was only when I accompanied Marisa Monte that I had a whole month of vacation”, the bass player recalls the longest time when he was away from his bass in these three decades as a musician, When he was isolated in Recife due to the quarantine, he did not bring his instrument, and found himself with only one way to make music, his own cell phone.

“I have always used my cell phone to record bassline ideas, using the Garage Band app to remember them when I was creating them”, recalls Dengue, explaining that, in this way, he shared these basslines with other members of Nação Zumbi, so when the group would get together in the studio, they could have starting points for new songs. But gradually Dengue started further exploring the app and, while learning other things - like French and carpentry – he created small instrumental sets in addition to the basslines.

“That's when I realized I could compose whole songs, not just parts that would lead to new songs”, he explains. Motivated by the app's limited technological resources, he slowly directed those new songs to somewhere in the early 80's, when, precisely because of other types of technical restrictions, what we know as electronic music was gradually being created.

But although the lo-fi aesthetics of the songs have synthetic tones and an alien nature - which inevitably led him the science fiction universe that set the tone for the album -, the base of the songs of this first solo work, entitled A Volta de Soturno, has its feet firmly grounded on one of Dengue's main influences as a bass player - the Jamaican universe of reggae and its psychedelic side, dub.

All this was seasoned with imagery also from the beginning of that decade, mixing cyberpunk elements with Japanese shows, which invites the listener precisely to the return of Soturno, whose journey is described in the order of the six songs of the first part of the album. Starting from the first track, “Terra”, we travel towards Cinturão de Órion”, passing through the “Buraco de Minhoca” to “Multimundo”, when we start to see the “Anéis de Soturno” until finally reaching the “Volta de Soturno”, which Dengue identifies as his own process of transformation into a composer. Not by chance he is on the verge of turning 50 (hence the period of the strange planet's orbit). Drawing a parallel with the Joseph Campbell's hero’s journey, the mysterious planet’s journey takes him to a new home, in another dimension, which makes him feel at ease with his new identity - precisely Soturno.

That's how Dengue baptizes his new work, leaving the old name linked to his original band and his role as an instrumentalist. As Soturno, he partners with the Embolex VJ's collective, who will create clips for each of the songs, and already foresees two other parts of the new work - another six songs that close this moment of transformation and another album with the twelve original songs remixed by musicians, DJs, and producers to be chosen. The album is mixed by producer and sound engineer Yury Kalil.

Make way for Soturno!

Alexandre Matias (www.trabalhosujo.com.br) is a journalist, music curator, and artistic director