Arte Bruta. BIKE

Music from Brazil does not find its way to this blog every day, if not year. Music from the Portuguese language speaking, huge state in Latin America I usually associate with bossa nova or something like it. Enter BIKE. Single 'O Torto Santo' had already made it to these pages and here is Arte Bruta, the band's fifth album, yet my first.

BIKE, most likely, is a new band for most readers as well. The band's members are: Julito Cavalcante (guitar and vocals), Diego Xavier (guitar and voice), Daniel Fumega (drums) and João Gouvea (bass). They release records since 2015 of which the third is an obvious pun, 'Their Shamanic Majesties' Third Request'.

The new album's title refers to the 'art brut' or 'raw art', as founded by Jean Dubuffet in France well after WWII. The music on Arte Bruta is far from raw, I'd comment. BIKE mostly plays a very stylised form of psychedelia. Although some parts of 'O Encontro Do Céu Com A Terra', remind me more of COBRA painter Karel Appel's famous motto: "I do not paint, I hit".

Art Brut. J. Dubuffet Kröller-Müller. Photo W.de Natris

BIKE mixes a set of influences into its music in a quite organic way. There is always a light form of psychedelia as is in vogue for more than a decade now. Always more an integrated part of the sound than heavily defining everything that is happening. There's a song first and that gets a light psychedelic treatment. Automatically the 1960s creep in, as then the sound was invented. The next level makes what BIKE is, a Brazilian band. Especially in the way of singing and I do not refer to the Portuguese language here per se, makes the bossa nova a defining feature. It is the dreamy way of singing, straight out of the Astrud and Bebel Gilberto songbook. This mix gives BIKE its own flavour, setting it apart from all the other bands out there playing this kind of music.

Photo: Bel Gandolfo

The album starts totally out there. What to make of it? BIKE is on its own trip somewhere between music and whatever. 'Arcoverde' is an ouverture before the album starts. It spells brace yourself for some weird shit but in fact it parks weirdness and moves into songs. 'Além-Ambiente' is not an easy song that comes next. More intriguing than good. BIKE does not play easy to catch at the start of Arte Brute. From Zappa to Santana and sixties Indian influenced pop it is all there. It made me pay attention and with the riff opening 'O Torto Santo', I knew we were going to be alright.

Arte Brute is an album very much worth taking notice of. No, I do not have a clue what the band is singing about. It doesn't matter. The music is more than compensating for that lack of understanding.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and order Arte Bruta here:

https://bikeoficial.bandcamp.com/album/arte-bruta