Estrela Acesa

Description

Sergio Sayeg, aka Sessa, has always been fascinated by what he calls the bazaar of music: its accidental and circuitous nature, a path on which musicians and the public can reach a higher purpose. A supreme love if you will. While Sessa's debut album, Grandeza in 2019, explored bodily pleasures and the sweet intoxication of being in love, his new album, Estrela Acesa (which can be translated as "shining star"), looks to the heavens and reflects on love, both sensual and spiritual, in the throes of the resulting side effects. Born in São Paulo but feeling at home everywhere, Sessa conceived his new album as a bridge to connect the earthly and astral realms of music. A sensual joy runs through the twelve tracks of Estrela Acesa. It's all there in the concise two minutes of "Gostar do Mundo," the opening track that plays with the sense of tension sometimes associated with Brazilian music: sunny tropical light and good vibes but also the very impossibility of enjoying it with the world in a pandemic, a fascist president... Brazilian music with touches of Erasmos Carlos and João Donato, but the greatest rhythmic influence here is the roots reggae of Johnny Clarke. In the legendary New York record store in the East Village where he worked, Tropicalia in Furs, Sessa immersed himself in the many splendors of the sounds that mingled around him. While singing in his native Portuguese, he favors the minimalism and poetic frankness of authors like Bill Callahan, Nick Drake, and Leonard Cohen, combined with the timbres and textures of spiritual seekers like Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, and Yusef Lateef. Hints of this liberated jazz first emerged on Grandeza, whereas on Estrela Acesa, the superb orchestrations offer a gentle transcendence. At the forefront is the nuanced interaction between Sessa and his trio composed of bassist Marcelo Cabral and percussionist and co-producer Biel Basile. There are also the backing vocals and percussion of Ciça Góes, Ina, Paloma Mecozzi, and Lau Ra, offering an elision between each carefully worked passage, intertwined with Gabriel Milliet's elegant flute. Everything is enhanced by the orchestration provided by Belarusian arranger Alex Chumak and New Yorker Simon Hanes, giving Estrela Acesa a feel that is both minimal and opulent; the songs gradually blossom into a lush and fertile landscape. "Canção da Cura" ("song of healing") is a breakup song in the tradition of Paulinho da Viola or Baden Powell, but it also speaks of the cathartic properties such music can have. On the serene instrumental track "Helena," Chumak and Hanes convey an intense feeling with their work on orchestral strings. The result sounds like a centerpiece of the album. One thinks of Rogério Duprat's sound on those famous tropicalia records or Walter Branco on Marcos Valle's sublime Previsão Do Tempo, and especially the legendary arranger Arthur Verocai. Estrela Acesa is an album of contradictory desires in a sweet balance. Both intimate and grandiose, Sessa finds reasons to celebrate the magic of life amidst the overwhelming reality of the present. There is a light to be found in the devouring darkness.