Mondo Bizarre Magazine

Pharaoh Overlord © Rafael Farias

PHARAOH OVERLORD – Great concert given by Finnish band Pharaoh Overlord afternoon Sunday on palco Piscina on the last day of the Millhões. The band is no less than the five Circle’s members (that have played Milhões two days ago), this time with a different posture and sound proposal. They wandered, carburazing for an hour between four themes carved with wisdom and enlightenment, and at the same time with the simplicity of the essential and the strict discipline with which they played. Of strong krautrock inclination (all the rhythms were from the motorik), there was a careful and laborious execution by strings, within the aesthetic logic mentioned above of stretching to the maximum the possibilities of creation, largely by improvisation (this was, confirmed to me by guitarist Jane Westerlund). The result was expected that is, the continuous sensation of being on a mental journey through the Cosmos, between the environmental and the psychedelic, where at times because of slight alterations of intensities, mainly by tonal alteration of the bass, explosions of energy are described. Music to be listened to preferably with closed eyes and swinging the body to its rhythm. In the end, the quintet was effusively applauded by the audience and the musicians also showed their contentment for a performance at all levels exemplary. At Milhões my early afternoons are always good.

JOHNNY HOOKER – The greatest magic, sometimes larger than life itself, occurred splendidly late Sunday afternoon on palco Piscina. Johnny Hooker, the Pernambuco native that is making a rage and conquering the “world” in a meteoric fashion, renewing current MPB, is a star more luminous than the Sun, and for whom I lack adjectives to describe it. For that very reason, I will not do it, urgently inviting those who do not know it yet, know him as his music to get to know it. Listening to his voice, rarest in its excellence, less than a meter from his presence, where all his rebellion is exposed in his courageous and audacious transgressive performance, is an experience that, when his name will be referred to in the future, I will never Forget. Johnny Hooker is an activist of the Brazilian LGBT movement, assumed homosexual, and through his lyrics and songs is giving rise to a whole controversial context of support, but also of fierce protest with which he is growing in public exposure and media levels. The Brazilian, a mix between David Bowie, Madonna and Caetano Veloso, as he himself describes his greatest influences, that made him what he is today, is one of those chosen, through his art, to change small worlds, since nobody changes the World. His success already proves it. One might ask: but is it because he is gay and a LGBT activist, or does this recognition lies only in his artistic side? I have concluded from his extraordinary, already legendary concert at Milhões that it is both. Also from a brief informal conversation with the artist, but if he has to be just one of them, the answer is: the art. No one is adored or appreciated without a gift; without some level of quality. And that Johnny Hooker has in spades for decades to come. Currently, he is already the future of MPB.  Many thanks Milhões for placing putting him on the line-up. Concerts like this save the day … P.S. : I was never  a Bowie’s fan and never understood the worship that more than half of the world has for his Ziggy Stardust phase. Now I understand them.

THE HELIOCENTRICS – This English band is, of all the ones that I have in Milhões the easiest one to be described regarding their sound. They are absolutely all that one wants to glue to them when it comes to genres (except rock’n’roll, blues, punk and metal); that aside, here, anything goes. They are jazz, experimental, electronic, folk, krautrock, environmental, psychedelic, funk, trip-hop, world music … anyway, the group has practically no stylistic borders and it is impossible to catalog them with one genre. The band clearly assumes this aesthetic attitude of not having an aesthetic, but several. In the show they played on palco Milhões, I identified the played themes an insistence on trip-hop, jazz, space-rock textures and mantric voices (with many similarities to the folkloric chorus The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices) … but others come to mind. The group consists of excellent musicians who guarantee consistency and a remarkable involvement of their themes. And its singer, Just B, the one upon whom all the attention is concentrated, develops an elegant and restrained performance; without major changes. She expresses herself more with the voice than with the body. Here there is clearly a defined posture. They gave a great concert, where the psychedelic aesthetics/ trip to the Cosmos images projected in the background scenery fully worked out as an adjuvant of the music. Between themes the audience always showed its it was pleased. In the end, with insistent applause the band returned to an encore of a theme. Of all the bands I saw it the first time I watched one in Milhões. Totally deserved.

OS TUBARÕES – The legendary and veteran Cabo Verde group was a sure choice to end Milhões in celebration the Millions on the stage with the same name. Very well known in our culture for its popularity among our fellow countrymen and others, derived in great part by the cultural and affective ties that unite the two countries in the pre and post Portuguese decolonization, afterwards and until now by the reality of the immigration of its citizens to our country, the group of Cidade da Praia does not require great presentations. Everyone knows (at least) that they are one of the major representatives of funaná, coladeras and mornas, inside and outside CaboVerde. Therefore, ambassadors. I retained two aspects that pleased me a lot from the concert: their music is completely up-to-date, modern in its interpretation, in a way that surprised me a lot. I confess I was initially going with the pre-conceived idea that something vintage and dated might be heard, given the age of its members; it did not happen at all. I found them profoundly magical interpreting the mornas. There were moments when I had shivers, what a strange thing … I think it’s nostalgia. Musicians of excellence and very good taste in the execution of the arrangements of the themes, and a magnificent voice, with a warm and distinctive tone, with a very accurate alignment of themes, it was not difficult to grab the audience from the first theme until the end. They were allowed to do as they pleased with the audience, and it showed visible in the way the audience already reacted to their movements: funaná and coladeras: immediate dancing; mornas: sighs and a tear … It was with a ball of enormous quality with which Milhões toasted everyone present. Everybody was dancing where there was room for it, it was beautiful to watch it. And for the second time, I attended the second encore of a band at the festival. Milhões 2018 ended with a flourish.

words: Guilherme Lucas (freely translate by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Rafael Farias &  Renato Cruz Santos.

original text: https://www.facebook.com/events/880971952100146/permalink/957108184486522/

GG RAMONE’s JOURNAL @ Milhões de Festa 2018, Day 3: Vaiapraia & As Rainhas do Baile, PÉ ROTO, Greengo, Gazelle Twin, Nubya Garcia, Electric Wizard, 08.09.2018.

VAIAPRAIA & AS RAINHAS DO BAILE – Its been some time I was looking to see a Vaiapraia’s concert and Milhões made it possible. I find his 2016’s album, 1755, a small gem, still a bit hidden, and punch in the gut of the politically correct, the courage of assuming differences face up in a society of eternal facades. For quick clarification those who may not know who he is. In a very synthetic way, I will say that he is a new emerging pop/rock national star, one of those able to do catcht songs, covered by a crude instrumentention, not to give itself up … and that he writes with determination, and a rare daring about his sexual orientation – which is not that of “good manners” – his love issues and problems. There aren’t many artists like Vaiapraia in this country; a handful or not even so. There is much more to him than someone who writes great songs that are extraordinary in their stylistic field. Vaiapraia represents all those who struggle daily to maintain their freedom and their well-being above water, often suffocated and postponed by a moldy morale of constant bullyings. It is, to a large extent, all that rock’n’roll in essence is. It is in his lyrics that all his struggle for his difference is shaped; the attitude of brave resistance, in a very crude, almost basic and humorous description of his feelings and thoughts. His descriptions are disarming and very direct, bluntly, almost brutalizing and scandalous; it is impossible to be indifferent: either one hates him, or one loves him. Tthe artist’s concert, held in the bandstand of Jardim 5 de Outubro – one of the daily concerts that are held outside the festival grounds – meet my best expectations. Vaiapraia is a stage animal, scandalous, impudent, and with na enormous capacity not to care about the shock it can cause to many. He is  a sort of Portuguese Little Richard. Where the American star (a classic rock’n’roll hero) took off his shows and ludicrously displayed them, Vaiapraia defiantly displays his socks. The sound of the band is purely and simply garage rock, punk pop, with even some forays to psychpunk. Musically it works perfectly, coupled with a lascivious, non-sense and fun, that captures attention. What a great early afternoon, I thought to myself.

PÉ ROTO – Braga’s Pé Roto started the hostilities the best way on palco Taina on the third day of Milhões, included in the special line-up that handed by SWR Barroselas Metalfest. The idea is that SWR invites bands they support to present themselves live Milhões’ audience . Obviously this context is that of the “bottom of the pit” and of exile; only “extreme” heavy bands enter the house. Pé Roto are masters in the execution of a slow and brutal sound, between doom and sludge, accurate and deep, and because of it, one of the current best national bands within their style. I met them a few months ago, at a concert they gave at Woodstock 69 bar in Porto, and I become an almost instantaneous fan of the band. This time, the group was just like itself, from the impression I had of them before, but playing for a much larger and more diverse audience, which I believe, will serve them very positively to further publicize their project. They are all good musicians and dominate in an enlightened way the musical aesthetics they represent. There is depth in their lyrics, all obscure and in some cases very strong on a suggestive level, as it happens about Braga in Bracara-vitae: Perdido nesta Bracara Angústia, Amarras que me prendem ao fundo do poço (Lost in this Bracara Anguish, Moorings that hold me to the bottom of the well), or Faço a última sopa num culto à folha sagrada, rodo o paiva ao Diabo, mas dou-lhe uma ponta rafada! (I do a last soup in a cult of the sacred leaf, squeeze the devil, but I give him a worn out tip! in Fumar & Beber. I consider them heirs of much of Maõ Morta’s raw, dense spirit to their city, but in a musically distinct style. Different generations, different musical styles … but similar in the same registry of debauchery and loss.

GREENGO – Pé Roto were followed by Greengo. Unlike the previous band, that I only come across at a later date, I have been a fan of this Porto’s band since their first concert in Porto. I find this duo simply fantastic and wrecking in its sound. They are two extraordinary musicians, one in the drums (Chaka) and the other in the voice and bass (Pedro Martelo) … and together they can obtain a completely overwhelming sound, enormous and quite intelligent in a very varied dosage of intensities and rhythmic movements, which impresses those who see them live. I consider Greengo to be a revitalized (or if you prefer, crossover) fusion band within all the more radical sub-genres of heavy and distorted sound of the last decades. They are doom, sludge and industrial; they smell like Motorhead mixed with Sepultura, Killing Joke with Discharge, so the list is immense … As for their concert in Milhões, it was exactly in the same registry as always: they take no prisoners and gloriously imposed their law upon all those present who watched – surrended – to such sound colossus. Great show from a top band. Bring on the next one.

GAZELLE TWIN – Elizabeth Bernholz, a British artist, who uses the stage name Gazelle Twin, performed on Palco Milhões on Saturday night. Her musical project, which is part of contemporary electronic music, in a more avant-garde way, and that has received rave reviews from several sides of the specialized music press, is not easily accessible as a whole because of its proposal, which is about exploring new languages. When this happens (and it always does), there are those who fall in love with something that can make a difference, or those who, on the other hand, cannot find something sensible to presently deserve their attention. It is in such context that I analyze the Briton show in Millhões. I expected more from her performance. Much more, by the way. Not so much from her music – that has undeniably revitalizing aspects – but more for the design of the show presented. I identified imbalances, aspects that should be more fluid. There are very interesting moments, but many others are somewhat disengaged in its continuity and that do not fully work out; there are still rough edges that need to be rounded in order to offer a more vibrant and accessible show to an whole audience, and not only to those who seek only  musical novelty, underestimating a live performance as something different and important as dissemination of new concepts. Even because I noticed many musical suggestions in Gazelle Twin, like Bjork or Laurie Anderson, among others, and that readopted to the artist’s language turned out well and perfectly consumable. To conclude, I will say that the alignment of the themes chosen jeopardized the clarification of the project live.

NUBYA GARCIA – It was an enormous concert given by the artist, assisted by a trio of brilliant musicians, offered to the audience on palco Milhões. It was a perfect concert in its entirety. There were no lessen moments; all were great, liberating and therapeutic. Nubya is an exceptional saxophonist; just by listening, you will understand how divine she is. All the other musicians who accompany her are on the same level. They are a perfect jazz orchestra, turned into quartet. Already regarded as one of the newest afrojazz names, the group performed at every moment of the concert in such a way that the music they built was nothing but natural and vibrant and extremely enjoyable to be listened to. The saxophonist very nicely  thanked the audience on several occasions its warm reception to the band and expressed how happy she was to be in Milhões. Thank you, Nubya!

ELECTRIC WIZARD – British band Eletric Wizard were the catchier name of Milhões’ third day  One that would gather the greatest interest of the audience that came by Saturday. This cult band, once more at the festival, has returned to show how it defends its credits on stage. By that point the show was what was expected: musically very solid and flawless. I confess that the band far exceeded my expectations, that may be beneath the band’s staunch fans ones. In that regard, things went well for me; It’s always good to have good surprises. The group is an expert practitioner of doom-sludge sounds, with streaks of stoner doom and some acid rock added to the mix. Two things I keep from the band and that I thank them: the solos they perform are good, and are as short as they need not to annoy. I quite enjoyed their mentor’s, Jim Oborn, voice tone, perfect for the genre they play, since it is melodic enough to allow for what is being sang to be understood. If one understands the band that is being talked about is essentially one that boils down to the hail to Satan trilogy, weed and I drink your blood, I realized that they are also a good live band. And let there be no doubt about it. Let it be mentioned that the audience deserved an encore from the band, after the end of the performance. Even because it was an impeccable concert, and that, I would like to believe, pleased most people.

words: Guilherme Lucas (freely translate by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Marcelo Baptista & Rafael Farias.

original text: https://www.facebook.com/events/880971952100146/permalink/956430897887584/

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