(O Qé Que Eu Sou) / What Am I
All Over
A Noite Sonhei Contigo
Pane De Maravilha / Wonder Failure
If You Won't
Meu Amor Se Mudou Pra Lua
Tudo Se Perdeu (Vicious World)
Long Way From Home
Barcelona 16
Eu Quero Ir Pra Rua
Um Primeiro Beijo / A First Kiss
Você Me Ganhou De Presente / You Got
Me As A Gift
Rústica / Rustic
Glass - I'm So Brazilian
Paula Toller and her band with Jesse Harris
and Donavon Frankrenreiter and Kevin Johansen
This is the second solo disc
by the Brazilian singer Paula Toller, best
known perhaps for her work with Kid Abelha.
Her first solo disc was issued way back in
1998 so this one, nearly a decade later, shows
that she’s not greedy to saturate the market
with work of this kind.
Toller is a pop singer with
only the very vaguest links to any kind of
jazz inflection. There’s only one song that
shows such hints – the springy Long Way
From Home which opens with a Nashville-styled
slide guitar intro but has a
lightly textured and easy-moving swing that
is both approachable and likeable. For the
rest we are deep in MOR territory.
(O Qé Que Eu Sou)
or What Am I in English opens the album
with a kind of sub Sheryl Crow vibe. This
is an affiliation that recurs throughout the
disc – with the open lyricism and C&W
hues that Crow used to push being similarly
evident in Toller’s work. Try Meu Amor
Se Mudou Pra Lua - another track that
reinforces the connection. So too Barcelona
16 which, despite going on too long, sounds
like a pared down Crow vehicle. If You
Won’t is a more straight-down-the-line
C&W number whereas All Over is
out and out pop despite flecks of Latin American
percussion.
Tudo Se Perdeu (Vicious
World) is a Rufus Wainwright song and
it sounds comfortingly religiose here. Certainly
Toller’s feel for easy lyricism is a plus,
but there’s simply too much unsieved material
here, too much that sounds too alike; the
arrangements are pretty flimsy at the best
of times and the whole album has a chaff-like
feel, as if a lack of rhythmic drive and verve
were in some way a blessing. And this from
a Brazilian as well.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
WARNER
5101196662 [46:16]
