In Lust With 3 Na Massa

Rio has traditionally been Brazil's musical epicenter, but lately the tides of history have turned in Sao Paulo's favor, thanks in large part to a surge in creativity driven by a network of likeminded artists. Sao Paulo is home to young, tech-savvy cool kids who soak up cross-cultural currents over the Internet and mix and match them with traditional Brazilian rhythms. One of the most prominent players in the scene is Rica Amabis. Officially he's the producer extraordinaire behind the hip-hop collective Instituto. But Amabis spins a labyrinthine-like web of projects and side projects as well. In fact some of those have already been picked up by stateside indie labels such as New York's Nublu and San Francisco-based Six Degrees. The latest is 3 Na Massa, a trio that is one part Amabis, two parts Pupillo and Dengue, members of the seminal Recife rock outfit Naçao Zumbi. They drop their cinematically inspired, self-titled debut on April 29. Imagine a movie montage culled from the frames of Federico Fellini’s La Strada and Roger Vadim’s kitschy 1968 sci-fi fantasy Barbarella set to the lush musings of a smoky-voiced Brazilian siren cooing in Portuguese. Now picture the scene unraveling at Coney Island’s Astroland park starring an actress on a Freudian carousel ride of her innermost salacious desires. It may sound contrived, but for 3 Na Massa (3 In the Dough), the idea to penetrate the female libido through music stemmed from such visual mash-ups. The troupe began sampling sonic driftscapes on a computer in their shared quarters before finally making it seamless in the studio. The result is a record fashioned as a kind of confessional soundtrack to the erotic comic book frames of Italian artist Milo Manara. Piled with layers of references that range from Brazilian filmmaker Hugo Khouri to the voluptuous sonic contours of Serge Gainsbourg, the record shows the threesome’s close attention to detail. For instance, the intimate dialogues of amorous encounters were penned in the feminine voice by various songwriters -- among them Rodrigo Amarante, Recife composer Juno Barreto and Mamelo Sound System singer Rodrigo Brandao. 3 Na Massa then enlisted female singers and actresses, including friend and newcomer chanteuse CéU, Orquestra Imperial’s Thalma de Freitas, Brazilian soap opera star Karine Carvalho and City of God’s Alice Braga, to create vocal personas for each of the album’s thirteen-track storylines. Post-retro, B-movie lasciviousness, and mood simulation are the sonic aphrodisiacs of choice for these Sao Paulo hipsters.