SATWA

Considered the debut of the art collective Abrakadabra formed by the two friends Lula Côrtes and Lailson de Holanda Cavalcanti, this unique album came about after the duo had traveled around the world and was influenced by the exotic sounds of Northern Africa and India. The album was part of a greater underground movement called Udigrudi which took place in the Brazilian city of Recife and was prevalent in all forms of media including plays, texts, cinema, plastic arts and of course music. The musical aspect focused around a post-Woodstock-ian psychedelic scene which most commonly connected aspects of British pop, Brazilian tropicalia and other forms of psychedelic rock.

SATWA was the duo's sole collaborative album that they recorded in 1973 and was based around the dueling aspects of Lailson's 12-string viola and the trichord which is a popular zither that Lula picked up in Morocco. While officially released under the moniker LULA & LAILSON the project was known as SATWA as well. While technically a duo, SATWA included Robertinho de Recife who played lead guitar on the track "Blue do Cachorro Muito Louco." While primarily an instrumental album, a few vocal parts spring up randomly. While solely expressed in terms of acoustic psychedelic folk music, the ten tracks were inspired by all musical forms of the era including rock, folk, blues, psychedelia and Indian ragas with the sitar being the only other instrument to be heard on the album.

The original album is quite rare. It was recorded on the 11th of January 1973 at the Rozenblit studio and limited to a scant few copies distributed completely independently and later Lula would come to find out that his approach was a first in Brazil which makes this one of the nation's first indie records and all of this despite the fact that Rozenblit was a record label as well. Despite its extreme rarity the album has achieved a veritable cult status as a very important milestone in the Brazilian recording industry and has remained an underground favorite release however with the renewed love of all things psychedelic from the 60s and 70s across the entire world, SATWA has been reissued issued both on vinyl and CD since its initial release.

This is a magic mushroom type experience and features two guys simply strumming away lush chords in jamming fashion with the only break from the monotony coming from Robertinho's guitar soloing on the bluesy acoustic rock track "Blue do Cachooro Muito Louco." This is one for the trippers as it sounds like campfire songs being played in the woods with no worries about embellishments to spice it up. Its a bit underwhelming as an active listening experience but gently pacifies the soul if played as background music. It's one of those hippie anthemic types of album that represents a time and age of innocence before the world got all gnarly on us. It's an interesting artifact from the Brazilian subculture and may even appeal to those who love folky jams on acoustic instruments not often heard together but it's a little too tame and stripped down to be essential. Reminds me of some of Leo Kottke's American primitivism guitar strumming. It's an interesting blast from the past but not as mind blowing as some make it out to be.

From the very crazy mind of Lula Cortes (that would give us in a few years ahead the marvelous Paebiru and way ahead would have a strange pop-psych-folk mixture in his solo career), came a great voyage thorugh indian, northeartern brazilian folk and a lot of psychdelia.

I have mention the Psychdelic Folk scene of Brazil in other posts ad reviews (with Lula Cortes, Alceu Valença and Ave Sangria being the expoents), and maybe one of the best albums that show this is Satwa. A whole trip into every style that influences this two musicians - and others close to them as well - are merged here with the sitar. We can even hear something closely related to a acid-blues, in acoustic passages, what made me think in a crazy relationship with Sandy Bull' E Pluribus Unum (check it out!).

As the album is too steady (without any edgy parts, sadly) I cant go on to give this a full five stars. However, as a great sum up of what this whole musical scene is (or at least a representative of one of their sound possibilities), let's give'em 4 sars.

I listened to this the other day. It is definitely pleasant background music.

The first song is a very nice acoustic number, with acoustic guitars in the back ground and some nice work on the Sitar, though they play the Sitar in a Western Style, with less emphasis on the spiritual sound on Indian music. Even I'm not sure if they are playing a Sitar or another instrument. Anyway this is good acoustic music. However, every song is pretty much the same, only "Valsa Dos Cogumelos" which features some very interesting electric lead guitar work.

However, the rest is very good acoustic guitar music, but somehow I wanted more... Not bad, nonetheless. Good mood-setter.

A little but brilliant Brazilian 70's acid folk formation. Almost exclusively acoustic and dominated by bucolic guitar parts, the music is an intricate manifestation of stylistic, floating "eastern" exercises, largely structured, simplistic and efficient. All tracks develop colourful, dreamy-like raga guitar interludes. The beautiful psych-pastoral base line is comparable to musical motifs ever developed by Teutonic bands (notably Witthuser & Westrupp and Holderlin at their most evanescent moments). With a positive, gentle energy, "Satwa" & "Can I Be Satwa" definitely show the "raga" side of the band. "Alegro Piradíssimo" is a poetical, sad ballad. "Lia a Rainha da Noite " carries on a delicious, fragile pastoral composition. "Apacidonata" sounds as an other desperate ballad in a semi-classical guitar style. A beautiful, sad, grave and almost "cosmic" voyage. "Amigo" is a sunny, luminous pastoral guitar composition. "Blue do Cachorro Muito Louco" contains some nice technical & melodic guitar lines punctuated by discreet linear voices, with its always recognizable folk accompaniment. An impressive, meditative folk base "work" made of short instrumental songs. From Latin prog folk, (in some points) it tends to be better than the classic Arco Iris first essays.

This album, even with the fact that is not well recorded, is an interessant piece of progressive rock. With a tendence to the indo - prog, satwa can make a sound full of elements such as in progressive rock, as a folk sound from Brazil. Lula Cortez, the lead member, is famous in Brazil for do it an experimental sound, and this album is a sample of what he can do with an simple guitar and a lot of ideas. I recomend this album for those who like of diferente aproches to the progressive and the folk music.