A Night To Be Remembered
🔀 Shuffle Sundays #79 • Fado Bicha, Young The Giant, Marina Herlop, Music Photography, and more!
💽 » Ocupação, by Fado Bicha
fado, alternative, indie • 12 songs • 45 minutes
From Lisbon, Portugal, comes one of the most interesting artists I’ve heard in recent years. Fado Bicha (roughly translates to Queer Fado), is a Portuguese duo that has been reinventing the way we all know fado, the traditional music from Portugal known for its melancholic tones and lyrics. In Ocupação, their recently released debut album, they mix the traditional with the contemporary in a way that it’s completely new to me. Lyrically speaking, most of the songs carries a heavy and (often times) sad content, but instead of the themes of the classics, they explore a lot of their own transformational journeys in a way that I can see a lot of LGBTQA+ people easily relating to.
For me, Fado Bicha is doing for fado music exactly what Rosalía did for flamenco a few years ago, and it’s not only an instant and powerful classic but already one of my favorite albums of 2022.
🎶 » American Bollywood, by Young The Giant
4 years since their last album, alternative-rock band Young The Giant is back with one of their best songs to date. American Bollywood is the opening track of their recently released EP Act I - Origins, which will be a part of the upcoming album by the same title, and it’s absolutely fantastic. The track explores lead singer Sameer Gadhia’s Indian background as an immigrant family pursuing the American dream, with great and detailed storytelling lyrics accompanied by beautiful and dreamy arrangements mixing Indian influences to their own already known identity, all paired with an extremely well-done music video.
🎶 » abans abans, by Marina Herlop
Marina Herlop is a Spanish composer, vocalist, and pianist that was completely new to me until I can across this very song abans abans, which opens up her recently released album Pripyat in a perfect way. Know for her classical music compositions, this third album sees her embracing an electronic and much more experimental sound that instantly reminds me of names like Björk, Jónsi, and Arca.
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🧩 » Random Bits
🎙 • Nature aficionado and fellow substacker Cole Noble had Fog Chaser in a recent interview for his podcast, talking about how nature is a key element of inspiration for his own music compositions. Listen here;
🎭 • If you, like me, think that movies, tv shows, music, books, and culture, in general, are getting less happy each year, this article by Eric Hoel is a great read;
🐦 • For the past couple of weeks I’ve been posting daily song recommendations on Twitter, as a way to expand Shuffle Sundays in bite-sized content and experiment with other platforms. So make sure to follow me there if you need more music recommendations!
⚡️ Visual Inspiration
Last week I had the pleasure to attend and photograph Brazilian legend Ney Matogrosso playing at Summerstage in Central Park, NYC, on a night kicked off by Fado Bicha and Francisco El Hombre. There is a set of images in my blog, and a few favorites below:
🎶 » New Music
this week’s new albums I'm curious to check
Also, new singles from Polyphia, Panic! at the Disco, Billie Eilish, Jessie Ware, and many more. If you’re curious to hear some of these songs and more, make sure to follow my 2022 playlist on Spotify, updated weekly with new releases:
Leo, I just found your newsletter and I’m so glad I did. I love the wide range of artists you feature each week, a good percentage of which are new to me. I knew Young The Giant before, but that new song you shared is a knockout. And I’m definitely going to look into more Fado Bicha after checking them out here. Thanks for your thoughtful curation!
Can’t go wrong with Beach Bunny! She & Him is a duo tailor-made for contempt… and yet, I always find new reasons to like them.