Having spent their formative years in São Paulo Brazil, as a teenager, Lau Ro found themself uprooted from their home. Moving with their family to Europe in search of a better quality of life, their story was like that of many immigrants in the same position. Lau Ro’s parents found work in factories and cleaning jobs, for the first few years in the North of Italy and then in Brighton on England’s Southern coast. “We never managed to visit back home, so my connection to Brazil became largely made up of childhood memories and my fascination with all the 60s and 70s music I could find from there.”
In Brighton, the young non-binary singer and composer would immerse themself amongst the city's vanguard of free-thinking artists and musicians. Lau Ro formed Wax Machine whose prefigurative, psychedelic community provided a glimmer of countercultural hope amid a backdrop of national political decline. From 2020-23, Wax Machine birthed three cult-favourite albums in as many years; indebted in part to their British psychedelic forebears from progressive folk, rock and jazz yore. But the kernel of Lau’s Brazilian sound was already beginning to blossom across Wax Machine’s releases. Now, taking root deeper still, Lau Ro steps forward with their debut album: Cabana.
Named after the small wood cabin at the bottom of their garden where the album was recorded, Cabana is a deeply personal record of memory, self-discovery and imagination. Melancholy and hope combine across ten tracks of dreamy bossa, ambient folk, fuzzy tropicalia and majestic MPB. The music is swathed in masterful string arrangements and trippy electronics in equal part, while Lau Ro’s delicate, yet quietly confident voice takes acerbic aim (in both English and Portuguese) at polluted city life, while dreaming of a utopia, rich with nature and wildlife.
Like the musical equivalent of semantic drift, Lau Ro’s displacement led to the creation of another Brazil. A mythic place in Lau’s soul, as they put it, “where the sunshine and joy of my childhood remained untapped.” Lau continues: “It’s music that might sound as if it came out of a parallel universe Brazil, rather than its modern day landscape. I am nowadays rediscovering Brazil, going back as often as I can and trying to stay connected to these different parts of the world and myself.”
Cabana releases on vinyl LP, CD and digitally on 31st May 2024 via Far Out Recordings.
Tracklist:
1. Onde Eu Vou
2. Each Day
3. Assim
4. Ensolarade
5. Casinha
6. Somewhere
7. Diferente
8. Midnight Blue
9. Lugar
10. Metamorfose
Credits:
Compositions and arrangements by Lau Ro
Except Cellos arranged and recorded by George Lloyd-Owen
Lau Ro - Production, vocals, guitars, drums, percussion, piano, keys, bass and flute on ‘Assim’
Jamie Broughton - Trumpet and trombone
Isobel Jones - Flute on ‘Each Day’ and ‘Lugar’
George Lloyd-Owen - Cello
Nature sounds recorded by Lau Ro at Serra Da Canastra Brazil, except for rain in ‘Casinha’ recorded at the Cabin
Recorded and mixed by Lau Ro at the Cabin, UK
Mastered by Caspar Sutton Jones at Gearbox Records
Photography by Frances Joy Macgregor Mitchell
Design by Alessandro Renaldin
All tracks published by Far Out Music Publishing UK / Westbury Music LTD.
Special thanks to Heidi Westgate, Paulo Zanin, Russ Saunders, Rex Brangwyn and Frances Joy Macgregor Mitchell - all of whom played a crucial part in the creation of this record.
Buy the vinyl below or on Bandcamp