Mariá Portugal

Penetrating music at the intersection of form and freedom.

Infinite music

A song that never ends, and never tires either. It’s the dream of many musicians to write such a song, or at least to find a form that suggests the sound will never end. Brazilian drummer Mariá Portugal (1984) also seems to be searching for such a form.

Between chaos and order

With the project EROSÃO, of which in 2021 a new album with the same name was released, she explores in unusually exciting style just how far she can stretch the structure of a song without rendering it unrecognizable or destroying the power of the melody. Together with her eight-man band she looks for that point where form and freedom intersect. The point where chaos threatens, yet a certain order still prevails. The collective improvisations and (electronic) soundscapes that EROSÃO adds to a song not only stretch it but also lend it a touch of strangeness, for instance by distorting the melody. Yet that’s precisely what enhances the emotional charge of the song. An example is the heartrending version of the well-known Nirvana number 'In Bloom.'

EROSÃO dismantles the recognizable elements of the song one by one until all that remains is the vocal line, like a desperate captain on a ship that’s slowly sinking. Very intense experience.