Mariá Portugal 2021
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.
Line-up
Mariá Portugal - Drums
Discover more!
Get to know Mariá by checking out the Music Meetup Podcast, her Music Meeting Session with Romain Bly and the Music Meeting Festival concert in 2018 with Quartabê.
