OCTOBER 6, 2009
Forro In The Dark's Light A Candle To Be Released On Nat Geo Music
Sophomore Album from NYC-Based, Polyglot Brazilian Dance Band Features Friends Including Brazilian Girls' Sabina Sciubba
Buy Forro In The Dark's Light A Candle at iTunes
In a rave review of critical darlings Forro in the Dark, The Washington Post described the style at the root of the band¹s music this way: "Forro is a century-old type of dance and song from northeastern Brazil, and its traditional lyrical content generally consists of love, sex, romance, sex, passion and sex."
The group, which has helped establish the downtown New York music scene centered at the hip international club Nublu, is both
faithful to and subversive of the genre-experimentally mixing in electric guitar, elements of hip hop and electronica, and instruments foreign to forró. The result is a music that extends the essence of the style: dance music best heard live.
So it¹s fitting that Forro in the Dark¹s new album, Light a Candle, was recorded almost entirely live, with minimal overdubs, capturing the high-energy performance for which they are best known. Nat Geo Music releases the album October 13.
The band is beloved not only by critics spanning from National Public Radio to The Fader, but also by a number of eminent New York-based artists who have embraced traditional Brazilian music, including Bebel Gilberto and David Byrne, one of Forro¹s earliest and most ardent champions. He has said of the group: "They are liberating the genre in the same way that Gram Parsons, Lucinda Williams, and others liberated country music. They aim to hijack the spirit and make it relevant and new." Sabina Sciubba, who leads Brazilian Girls, the other New York band of Forro¹s generation and sensibility, sings on Light a Candle, lending tongue-in-cheek vocals to the Morricone-meets-Piazzola track "Silence Is Golden."
The thirteen songs comprising Light A Candle, a name borrowed from a Neil Young song, were developed at the heart of this downtown scene, during the band¹s weekly Wednesday-night gig at Nublu. Forro recorded the album at FLUX Studios NYC with help from producer FAB and bassist Alberto Continentino, in addition to the core band of Davi Viera on percussion,
Guilherme Monteiro on guitar, Mauro Refosco on zabumba drum, Jorge Continentino on pifano flute and sax and all on vocals. The album includes original material as well as covers of forró classics such as "Saudades de
Manezinho Araujo" by Teo Azevedo and "Forro de Dois Amigos" by Edmilson do Pífano.
Light A Candle is the group¹s first full-length release since 2006¹s acclaimed Bonfires of Sao Joao and their first release since the 2008 EP Dia de Roda. Since they first formed in 2005 at co-founder Mauro Refosco¹s birthday party, the band has toured continually, building loyal audiences across the U.S. and around the world.
Forro in the Dark will also perform numerous tour dates this fall.
Forro In The Dark Tour Dates:
10/14: World Café Live, Philadelphia, PA
10/15: IOTA, Arlington, VA
10/16: Lake Eden Arts Festival, Black Mountain, NC
10/17: Lake Eden Arts Festival, Black Mountain, NC
10/18: The Southern, Charlottesville, VA
11/19: The Mint, Los Angeles, CA
11/20: Café du Nord, San Francisco, CA
11/21: Café du Nord, San Francisco, CA
11/22: High Dive, Seattle, WA
11/23: Doug Fir, Portland, OR
11/27: Highline Ballroom, New York, NY
