Album Review: Fabiano do Nascimento – ‘Cavejaz’: a stunning collection of guitar and percussion miniatures.

It may be a decade into the consistent series of impactful releases from composer/guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento but here is a musician who continues to build on his reputation as an innovator both within the MPB world and beyond. A guitarist from the age of ten, his natural affinity for the instrument and intuitive feel for classic Brazilian music ensure that his soundscapes always thrum with both realism and wonderment. His new album ‘Cavejaz’, out now on Leaving Records, is reliably true to form, one of those releases which has its own spectral aura, grounded in a singular beauty and natural grace.

‘Cavejaz’ shows a move away from the ambient fusion pulses of ‘Das Nuvens’, his last recording for Leaving and dives further into the acoustic possibilities of his 2023, guitar-centric ‘Mundo-solo’ album, but there is a twist. This time around do Nascimento ditches the lone working for something more collaborative. If you’ve heard the magnificent ‘The Room’, which he recorded with genre-fluid, LA saxophonist Sam Gendel last year, you’ll know that do Nascimento excels in shared music making and now on ‘Cavejaz’ he is working with a similar approach. Joining him for several tunes on this latest release is experimental percussionist Paulo Santo, while tabla expressionist U-Zhaan works with Fabiano on a clutch of other tracks. This means that the ‘Cavejaz’ basic palate is essentially do Nascimento’s guitar dovetailing with dexterous rhythms although such a simple description doesn’t hint at the magic within these grooves.

Opener Aguas Serenas drifts in with the patter of water, flickering guitar trills and plopping beats, all rippling around a dreamy vocal from Minas Gerais singer Jennifer Souza. It’s a relaxed, soothing introduction with singular percussion from Paulo Santos, member of the seminal experimental group Uakti who during their time worked with Philip Glass, Paul Simon and Stewart Copeland. Renowned for their unique, minimal music created by their custom-made instruments, often involving loads of PVC tubes plus any bits and pieces, Uakti’s bubbling pan sound gets echoed here, warm and friendly as the subtle bossa flows.

As well as vocalising on this welcome to ‘Cavejaz’, Jennifer Souza was the catalyst that sparked this latest do Nascimento project by suggesting that he worked with the revered Santos. It was an intuitive strike which led to the pair pitching up at a studio in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, for a session suddenly curtailed by that summer’s wild fires raging all around them. As do Nascimento recalls the difficult circumstances meant “recording the open and free ideas that would come up. Leo (Marques-Engineer) would just hit record, and we would just play.” That spontaneity and improvisational connection underpins the Fabiano/Santos tracks on the album. They are beautiful moments of delicacy and calm, zen-like and stoic, a juxtaposition or may be a reaction to what was going on outside the two musicians’ workspace.

Maracatu is the music of passing clouds, Uakti flutes and Souza’s cooing vocal gliding around do Nascimento’s cyclical guitar pattern as a bass drum pads in the distance. Although minimal these pieces also tingle with character. The pacing Trilobita prowls to a metronomic guitar riff while the pouting Uakti tuned percussion dances plus there’s an impish playfulness to Creature Ethereal where a mewing trumpet sound pleads around the elegant plucked guitar harmonics. The partnership certainly conjures some surreal atmospherics with their Amazonia nu-folk especially on Tranquilo, the album’s closing track. This song leaves you suspended amongst its trickling aquatic, muted animal sounds, do Nascimento’s resonant tidal patterns and some skimming drum trajectories.

There’s a second version of Tranquilo midway through the album featuring Japanese percussionist / tabla maestro U-zhaan. This take feels more immediate and graphic, a slowly stretching ascent of fluttering tablas, synths and guitar lines opening out to the sunlight. Elsewhere, as the other key collaborator on ‘Cavejaz’, U-zhaan brings a sensitive rhythmic solidity to do Nascimento’s compositions. Olhos Luz has a light afrobeat chug which compliments the hypnotic ngoni-tinged riff and some bluesy, Bassekou Kouyate-like runs while Vila goes samba, allowing do Nascimento’s jazzy twists to scat with U-zhaan’s skittering drummed coda.

What’s impressive about ‘Cavejaz’ is the continuity across all the pieces despite the distinct collaborations and recording locations, the Santos tracks recorded in Brazil and the U-zhaan cuts from a live performance in Tokyo. Three do Nascimento solo tunes, from studio sessions in Japan, also nestle comfortably within the overall narrative. In these the physicality and dexterity of his playing are pushed forwards to give the listener a “touching distance” experience. The title track, a jutting, angular bossa, all vamping bass arpeggios, hums and creaks, echoes spookily whereas on the earthy flamenco of Nova Dia the flick and click of fingers on strings adds a raw excitement to the piece. More experimental but still fitting is the gently oscillating Berimba-guitar where the muted chords call eerily. There’s even room for a succulent cover of the legendary guitarist Egberto Gismonti’s Salvador, a live take from an LA show that Fabiano played with band-buddy and percussionist Ricardo ‘Tiki’ Pasillas, which adds rather than diverts from the album’s whole sonic flow.

Gismonti’s indispensable ECM albums may actually be a useful reference point which helps articulate the splendour of Fabiano do Nascimento’s ‘Cavejaz’. On this new release we have a collection of exquisitely realised miniatures, created and sequenced with purpose and integrity, music which asks you to pause, lean in and consider closely.

Get your copy of ‘Cavejaz’ by Fabiano do Nascimento from your local record store or direct from Leaving Records HERE