Rodrigo Brandao, Sun Ra Arkestra

The edition that marks the start of the brand-new Comets Coming, a label linked to Groovie Records and A Traineira, could not be more suitable: it is that Rodrigo Brandão, like his grandfather Herman Poole Blount, dust of stars that the world knows as Sun Ra, may have his feet on the Earth, but he has definitely a sidereal head.

Brandão arrived recently to Portugal, but already left a strong mark in the most adventurous Lisbon scene, having performed several concerts in which his language has been wrapped in the exploratory sounds of musicians such as Rodrigo Amado, João Valinho, and Hernâni Faustino. The agitator, poet and spoken word artist, brought a vast experience that over the years saw him collaborate with artists as distinct as the members of Metá Metá or Prince Paul (that one!) on Broozkill!.

This work, however, came in his luggage, across the ocean, on the rediscovery trip that brought him from Brazil to Lisbon. Outros Espaço was recorded in São Paulo in late 2019 with a luxury crew: Tulipa Ruiz and Juçara Marçal added to the microphone, Thiago França played flute and alto & tenor saxophones, Guilherme Granado dealt with the synthesizers and effects, Marcos Gerez measured the overall pulse with his electric bass, Thomas Rohrer played soprano and 'rabeca' (fiddle), and Paulo Santos dealt with the percussion. In addition to the base band, Outros Espaço also features some members of Sun Ra Arkestra's current incarnation. Respectively: Danny Thompson (RIP) on baritone and bongo, Elson Nascimento on 'surdo' (tom drum), Knoel Scott on tenor and soprano, with the giant Marshall Allen in a prominent role leading the collective towards the unknown, while playing the alto sax and synthesizer.

In Outros Espaço, Brandão reaches for words from different origins, from contrasting times and cultures, all with magnetic resonance imaging: what is not from his furrow comes to him from Candomblé (Quando Os Orixás Desfilam Sobre A Cracolândia), from his readings of Sun Ra (Eu Sou 1 Instrumento is an adaptation of the poem I Am An Instrument), or from the school's playgrounds (Jamais Nos Esqueceremos). And in these words there are teeth and nails ingrained in injustice (Quantos Coltrane...?, Todo o Dia Tem +) and kaleidoscopic delusions that result from the speed of light (Sol da Meia Noite).

The crew that travels through these Outros Espaço (PT for "Other Spaces") has freedom as the main fuel, jazz as a measure of their reach, and all swings in the world as maps, so they can lose themselves at the end of the cosmos. There is urgency and reflection, craziness and precision, surprise and well-known ancestral raw material, that makes us vibrate inwardly with the same trembling as the comets that are coming.

The visionary and veteran Scotty Hard was responsible for making everything sound like the music of the spheres, dealing with the mixing from his Inguasonic Sound studio in Brooklyn, NY.  And lastly, in January, Rob Mazurek, another frequent ally of Brandão, another notorious space traveler, offered a poem that frames this project. Among other things, he writes:

Make this place sing
Make this place thunder
Make this place shake
It couldn't be in any other way.