Over the past decade, Brazilian guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento has honed a sound so muscular and expansive it may make you think the prolific soloist and collaborator had four hands playing his instrument’s six strings. His 14 records since 2015’s debut Dança do Tempo include everything from a tender duets album with saxophonist Sam Gendel, The Room, to the electronic-influenced Aquàticos with producer E Ruscha V, and the percussive tabla textures of Cavejaz. On Vila, Nascimento is leaning into orchestral composition, featuring alongside the 16-piece Vittor Santos Orquestra.
Employing his signature combination of finger-picked melodics with percussive strumming, Nascimento’s performance across Vila’s 11 tracks showcases his ability to weave seamlessly through the orchestra’s dynamic range rather than playing a single role. On Spring Theme, he establishes a simple lead melody that guides the ensemble and is anchored through swells of strings and soft shaker rhythm, while on Tema em Harmônicos his fingerpicking mirrors thrumming hand percussion as a muted trumpet takes the lead instead; Plateau’s intricate picking answers the staccato tones of the brass section, simultaneously leading and following. Conductor Vittor Santos’s arrangements reference the luscious, bossa-influenced orchestrations of fellow countryman Arthur Verocai, producing enveloping, overlaid harmonies on Valsa and Floresta Dos Sonhos.
It’s imaginative mood music that never quite reaches its full dramatic and explosive potential. Instead, the album luxuriates in gentle, sweeping viola and violin lines, and alternates between metallic picking and warm strumming on the guitar. Nascimento is virtuosic in his dexterity and he reaches a peak on the sprightly O Tempo (Foi o Meu Mestre), where he switches from a double-time swing to a half-time, yearning sway, which proves that even without an attention-grabbing crescendo or solo, he can still move listeners to his soft melody.
Also out this month
Ghanaian singer Lamisi’s Let Us Clap (Real World) combines a fierce activist message on women’s rights with thumping production that features traditional Ghanaian folk rhythm and electronics. The sparse handclaps and processed vocals of No Orgasm in Heaven are a highlight. A rediscovered gem from the 1970s, Tilaye Gebre’s Saxophone With the Dahlak Band (Muzikawi) features the Ethiopian psych-jazz saxophonist at the height of his powers, anchoring everything from reggae rhythm to organ-driven funk and slow swing in the husky tone of his saxophone. Malian masters of the stringed ngoni and percussive balafon Neba Solo and Benego Diakité release A Djinn and a Hunter Went Walking (Nonesuch), 10 tracks of deeply funky grooves bolstered by delicate choral arrangements.
