The Pop Corporation

We’ve been really excited about the new album from the brilliant Dora Morelenbaum for a while now.

With previous releases, we were reminded of the spirited bossa of the likes of Joyce Moreno and Caetano Veloso at his quieter, more poetic moments.

However, on hearing ‘Caco’, the new work promised a broader spectrum of sounds and a deeper well to draw from, and became one of our favourite songs of the year.

There’s still songs on ‘Pique’ that swoon and ache like some of the things we’ve heard before – ‘Essa Confusão’ is as languid and gorgeous a piece of music you’re likely to hear, but Dora is clearly an artist that has been growing creatively upwards and outward.

Album opener ‘Não Vou Te Esquecer’ points forward, allowing us to imagine a collaboration between Gal Costa and Marcos Valle, and that’s high praise indeed.

Of course, there’s more to Morelenbaum’s music than simply looking to the legends of Brazilian music from the past.

With Brazil being a hot bed of bebop and samba jazz, it’s wonderful to hear Morelenbaum incorporate these sounds into her work, as well as some of the inventiveness we’ve heard with the irresistible Ava Rocha and the joyful psychedelia of Tim Bernardes.

And while ‘VW Blue’ is a classy, busy piece of Brazilian jazz, inventiveness is the theme runs through the whole album, with Morelenbaum’s songs livened up and injected with life with uplifting rhythms and suspended Fender Rhodes hanging and puncturing her yearning, imploring vocals.

The stand out moments on this suoerb album are the moments where Morelenbaum marries all the disparate influences of acid jazz, nu bossa, MPB, disco, Tropicalia, funk carioca and more, and pierces the whole thing with her own unique vision.

On ‘Venha Comigo’ – stand out track from the album – you can hear all of these things come together, with the jazz of Ivan Lins, the soul of Trio Ternura, the baroque psychedelia of Arthur Verocai, the impact of Gal and Maria Bethania, the sunshine beat of Junior Mendes and the elegant chug of Milton Nascimento.

What’s so pleasing is that we get a cohesive album that swings and feels vibrant and fresh from top to bottom, and it is made even more remarkable when you consider that that this is Dora’s debut.

To come out of the gate so hot is one thing, but ‘Pique’ is yet another reminder that Dora and many of her counterparts are proof that Brazil is making the best music it has made as a country since the boom of the 1970s.

The arrangements are tight and meticulous but, still presented with enough room to breathe and be something of a carnival for the listener as rhythms switch up, textures change mid-song, and Morelenbaum’s songs weave between the groove of the whole project joyfully.

While ‘Pique’ sounds like a cohesive, collaborative process, Dora’s fingerprints are all over each song and it makes for a unique and wonderful vision of Brazilian music and, like all great albums, it manages to look forward while embracing the classics of the past.

By which we mean that Dora Morelenbaum has made a hugely listenable modern classic, filled with hooks, inventiveness, and energy. The rewards are massive in this LP, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a better debut album in the last two decades.

If all is right in the world, Brazil has just found its newest superstar and, in ‘Pique’, Dora Morelenbaum has created one of the best albums of the year regardless of genre.

Breathtakingly brilliant.