In Interview with Adriana Calcanhotto - Part 1

Adriana: From the moment you arrived home at the end of the tour, and the trip came to an end, no more arranging of luggage here and there, how did the seed of this album started? Were you already thinking about the album issue or it was just aimlessly in the air?

Marisa: When the tour came to an end I was sort of dived into a moment of silence, that kind of thing, you know? Real and total deflation of the mind. I already had some of these music done, ready or started during the tour, but I needed to relax at home for sometime, I needed this period of life, normal thing of the everyday life… Without much interruption, without much discontinuity, without much adaptation to different realities… every blessed day one hotel, a different food, a time schedule, a time zone, a different language.. At this moment, I had more opportunity to meet my partners, finish those things already started, watch shows of other singers or musicians and cherish or nourish the relations, which lead to the transformation of this new work. Then, I started doing the musical aspect. Actually, this album is a selection of some music which I made during these last three or four years. Some were even made during the period of recording.

Adriana: Did you compose them with the album already on the way?

Marisa:  Yes, two or three occurred during the recording. And some were already recorded by other persons, such as the “Bem Aqui”, by Dadi, “O Que Você Quer Saber De Verdade”, by Arnaldo, and “Verdade, Uma Ilusão”, by Brown.

Adriana:  And so, when you composed, being that you were already recording, you composed by inertness of being in movement with those things, or you had the necessity of doing the album, to complement things?

Marisa: Not at all. The music I remembered having done during the process was as a result or consequent to my passage through Los Angeles, when I met Rodrigo Amarante. I had never done anything with him before then, but there was always the mutual interest. One day we met at the studio because we were recording a music for the last Red Hot + Rio, “Nu com a minha música”, by Caetano Veloso and Devendra Banhart. During this period in which we were in the studio, the idea of recording music came up. It already there with some words, something that we did together at that moment, with some pieces of the musical letter. Later, he continued all alone. When he came to Rio, he brought with him what he already did. So then, we made the finishing touch and I found that it had to do with the rest of the entire album. It is all about the is desired and about paying the price for it, even though it looks crazy for everybody around. The music is in the first person and it says: “Go, you can talk, you can write, I will surrender myself”. It is about the recognition and the conquest of desire. 

Adriana:  I found it interesting that the album talks about these things that you are doing, relating to the unpredictable about love and how it is just like that. And it has a strong connection with this music that talk about the song, as to how the song goes through this, as to how the song expresses this, and it is so interesting because it is just so much like you. It is your way of making music. I wanted you to talk about this…

Marisa:  I am a singer that is well connected to the tradition of music and the song. I enjoy music with chorus, with first part, with second part. I very much enjoy the melody. The relation of the song with love is ancestral. Even the birds sing when they want to attract their partner. So, this is something that has to do with nature. And, in the truth, my concern when I sing about love today is to talk in a contemporary form, a love that is present among us today. Then, there are various questions with which my generation and the persons experiencing the love question today encounter, such as have a satisfactory and lasting love affair. That is, talk about love as it is really, not that love so much idealized.

Adriana: I think that the album has this, something unpredictable about love.

Marisa: Yes, there is music that talk about “loving someone has no explanation”. To love someone can only do well. Love is a form of intelligence, maybe the major one of them. We are going through so many transformations in the family relations, human relations, and one thing is certain that the models of the past are no more suitable to us.

Adriana: I think it is really interesting that some very young people will listen to this album and will have the touch that love is just like that, not so simple like that. It is very much complicated, much more complex and, thus, so interesting..

Marisa: The love question is one that is relevant in life of everybody. Maybe one or other does not mind this, but the majority does worry or feel concerned.

Adriana: And what did you play in that album? I saw that you played percussion..

Marisa:  We have here at home a collection of instruments that is readily at our disposition. As in most of the moments it was just Dadi, and I we unfold ourselves in various functions, even only to simulate what we wanted to record later. "Oh, it could be a keyboard”. Then, we recorded to see how it would be. Dadi also is a musician super versatile. He plays the guitar; he plays the bass, and the mandolin. Then we can enjoy ourselves here. A lot of things were substituted latter, when I called Daniel Jobim, Bernie Warrel or even Pupillo. But some instruments that used to play were put behind. In “Verdade, uma ilusão”, I recorded only the plates. Latter, Pupillo, listening to what I played, then only did the box. At the end, the drumbeat, which is heard, is just the two of us together. We try to distribute the songs in a very intuitive form, much musical and even without being pretentious.

Adriana:  This means, you never thought of sonority for the album, you went song by song….

Marisa: Yes, I went listening to songs and seeing what each of them was asking for. This is a collection of songs, each one way. The intention was to potentially increase the sentiment of one of them, what they wanted say. I always thought that I would be the point of connection between this music’s and, in one way, this diversity was always my trademark.

Adriana:  And the name?

Marisa:  “O Que Você Quer Saber De Verdade” was composed for sometime now and Arnaldo ended up recording it in his albums. The music is an invitation to silence necessary to be listened as per the necessity of the sole. 

Adriana:  I wanted to know about that moment in which you arrived home, at the end of the tour, brought luggage, with all the old scraps and needed space, time. You were not thinking about songs, much less in lunching a new album, talk about people.  You wanted to know how you were feeling then…

Marisa:  I think it is the moment of expansion and natural retraction. It is a dynamic movement, a highly musical concept of intensity and alleviation. I am happy because I feel a great desire to bring this music to the public. I am happy with the result. In a general form, I think that it is a very good moment because the ideas cause a lot of concern and work. To have an idea is easy, but to turn it into a good and ideal plan involve a lot of work and time. They got to the real plan means that the album is being listened to by the people. Of course, the process is pleasurable, is surrounded with love, with affection and friends, and is important for the result, but the full accomplishment is when it is with the public. Now this is with the album.

Adriana: And the show?

Marisa: Oh, I already have various interesting ideas for the show. Of the language, of the real graphic language that we are using in the album, in the album, on the web site and the various deployment which may become interesting. I have some ideas about the band, of the repertoire, of the scenography, but this is still in the second plan for me because I am deeply involved in other questions. For me to be doing the lunching in a way I have never done before, very independent, through my web site, in a direct communication channel, this involves my having to produce a much greater content, such as texts, answers, and videos. I think that all is being done today, in this sense, it is experimental. There is no exact format that has been approved satisfactorily, efficient, even because this format will become satisfactory much soon. It demands for much involvement on my part. I cannot simply delegate this to any one, because this is very personal. I am still dreaming over these things about the show. It will be set for the next year.