Marisa Monte Interview with Hermano Vianna Hermano: This that is happening here, to me, is a novelty, because I always listen to the album several times before doing an interview. It is the first time I listen to something on the spot. I was jotting down some things that are just the result of a first impression, which I think was your intention... Marisa: In fact, the intention was not to cause this discomfort you have to have to listen just once and come here to speak. The intention was to have a nice party and may have a flowing conversation, because I love to chat and enjoy good conversation, you know? The intention is not just an interview but an informal conversation about how you heard the record and issues that cause you curiosity. Hermano: But find this is a good discomfort, because it is a new experience for me. I am much more to be thinking of something and I only speak about it after thinking about it a lot. I had heard some of these songs. You said they were demos and I thought they were already records. How was the process from there to here? Marisa: It was built in layers. So let's say that first there were the compositions, a series of compositions, all in the head. And then I and Dadi, who lives across the street, started to meet at random, without appointments, no commitment, but with a lot of good-will on both parties. There is this comfort, because he knows how to handle a studio and we are quite close. "Oh, Dadi, come over here?" That was almost every day, in fact: "We kept on recording those songs, at least not to forget them?". So while you do this, of course you are already finding a comfortable way, a good pitch to sing, a way that it comes out nice, cool. We kept doing this with all the songs, without much compromise for a good six months. And about that time when you came to visit, the bases were already recorded. Then I started to do more to enforce. Now, several things that I did, including some bases, were on top of these references, these movements, these tones... Hermano: That served as a thing to listen for the musicians or other instruments were placed on top of that? Marisa: The two cases occurred. Some things were recorded above and others used. In other cases, it only served as a reference and was recorded again. I started recording the bases in São Paulo with the power trio Nação Zumbi - Pupillo, Dengue and Lúcio Maia - with things already started. I followed working on top of many of the very foundations that we had, which were bases of percussion, guitars, many of which I myself played with Dadi. Then I spent a month in New York in January, I took the HD with me, and there I met some musicians, some arrangers. I recorded some things there with Bernie Warrel, Funkadelic keyboardist, who had already recorded with me a few records that I did with Arto. I looked for a guy who played piano with a pop language and found Thomas Bartlett, better known as "Doveman", who played with Antony and the Johnsons, David Byrne and Yoko Ono, among others. He was appointed by Patrick Dillett, who mixed the albums "Mais," "Barulhinho Bom" and
"Memórias, Crônicas e Declarações de Amor." Hermano: I saw Patrick in the video in that first one that was on the Internet... Marisa: He was a partner that I rescued, a wonderful engineer. In "Mais", he was an assistant in the studio and ended up taking over the record. He worked a lot with Arto also and has been to Brazil several times. He helped me find these people with whom I made these recordings in New York. Then I went to Los Angeles and met with Mario (Caldato), with whom I had also thought of doing a few things. When I worked with Mario, here in Brazil, it was inside a universe of musicians with whom I already worked, but I wanted to meet some of this team. So he introduced me to Money Mark, keyboardist who played with the Beastie Boys, and also an American arranger, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, a super young man who plays viola, cello and violin, from whom I ordered some arrangements. I ended up finding Rodrigo Amarante there, when we recorded a song for Red Hot + Rio 2. I also met Gustavo Santaolalla, who is a guy with whom I had already done a few jobs, and who I deeply admire. He is an Argentine producer who has worked with many people, has composed many tracks for the movies. He produced the Cafe de los Maestros, Bajofondo and Julieta Venegas, for example. I spent some days with Gustavo, who is multi-instrumentalist and has a studio with a collection of instruments and sounds that he put at our disposal. He was getting inspired and it took a ronroco, a guitar, a sitar, a harmonium, I don t know, a pipe. On the way back to New York I met with another arranger whom I love, Greg Cohen, who had already worked with me and Arto Lindsay. He'd made "Maria De Verdade", Magamalabares, "Alta Noite", several things I like. I also ordered some arrangements from him. So, I left things all things wrapped up, I left and continued working in Brazil, doing voices and a few overdubs. I was coordinating it all and some things that were happening were more like remotely, like Miguel arrangements. He kept on recording in LA and sending to me. And Greg was also writing in Berlin. Hermano: And you traveling with an HD under your arm? Marisa: I traveled with the HD under my arm. This was a very remarkable thing. It was a record that I did with people working in Los Angeles, Berlin, New York... We communicated via email and Skype. Music came, music went For me it was a novelty because I did the last two records only in Rio and this is a relatively new technology that allows you to it. This was a record quite inserted into my daily life, my life. Besides much has been done in a home studio, I had this natural time with no deadlines Hermano: And who signs the production? Marisa: The production is mine and the co-production is Dadi s, who was my partner throughout this period, my partner from the beginning. Hermano: Because there is all this layer, all people who were joining along the way,
right on the road Marisa: It was done among friends. Many people ended up participating when they came to visit me. Domenico, for example, came here one day: "Oh, let me play this here." He went there, and the recording remained. I did not want to choose the music, like "you gotta play that song, that s the idea." I wanted people to choose the music and the instrument they felt like playing. The idea was to let it flow naturally in the person. This is a much more musical form of working. Hermano: You do not depend on technology, but technology only facilitates something that is Marisa: The technology itself is neutral. It does not help nor hinders. It depends on how you use it, like almost everything in life. Hermano: And it is a very interesting unity because there is the trio Nação Zumbi, Mario Caldato, Gustavo Santaolalla. Gustavo is a major producer of pop music in the history in the world, the album he did with Café Tacuba... Marisa: Not to mention his work for the movies.. Hermano: It's nice that this technology enables close contact with people who are distant and who otherwise could not participate due to their agendas... But will people still listen to a record? Marisa: Yeah, that's an issue. Hermano: I kept thinking about this: people put on shuffle and you do not have any control over what will come before and what will come after... Marisa: I do not know, it's true, people may not listen to the album much more, but I still am releasing an album, at least this time. It may be that in the future I release from two to two songs, from three to three, instead of one. I have nothing against it, I think it's pretty cool, but I think that while there still is a physical product, it serves as a reference format. I think really that the physical product will become a niche consumption the way the LP is today. It is inevitable and I think it's cool, because I think it is a lot of matter, it is too much plastic, too much paper. I think the world of the future does not need it, it does not fit it in it. I think it's quite cool for a mass consumption that even all this is virtual, which can circulate, that large files can fit in small spaces. I think it is very suitable to the changes that the planet must go through. But I'm not an artist who is starting now, I'm living this transition. My first job, 89, was released only on LP and cassette. I come from this world... Hermano: I still had the A side and B side, people were wondering what song would go to the A side and what songs would go to the B side, and CD has changed that.
And today technology that made possible the existence of this record as it is, the way you described the process of production, also allowed many ways to listen... Marisa: Yes, and I'm sure that it will cause a revision in the format of the business, the pace of release. I think for the artist, despite much talk of piracy, how much is lost, I think it is a big win when you do away with so many intermediaries in the relationship with your audience and be able to reach directly, both with your words and with your music and your thought. It is what is very best and that's what always fascinated me in the show. The relationship I built with my audience was through my direct contact with them. And the possibility do so in many ways is a huge gain. Hermano: But I think that before that you were already experiencing a new way of dealing, of doing away with the middlemen in your music. You were the first Brazilian artist to have control of the phonograms, for example... Marisa: Yeah, I always tried to be creative beyond my own musical production. How will it be my way as an artist in this world where I have to deal with different forces: the phonographic industry, the press, partners, musicians, myself... I always tried to put my creativity at the service of this and find a proper way to handle these things. I always looked for this way to have my own label, my seal, to have more independence and maintain freedom. There's no right way, no wrong, but I'm always trying to find mine. Hermano: Today is always a mystery when you're releasing a record. We lived another story of the phonographic industry. And I see that one person who worked so hard to release an album, to do that product and put so much into that... And that goes where, right? Will be sold where? There is no more stores Marisa: In fact, as much as all these files move, the production must be maintained, it cannot become an unviable thing.. Of course, the content still is worth a lot, people are eager to read good texts, listen to good music, get in touch with knowledge. That stuff is important for people and for us. So, at the same time, researchers, writers, scientists and artists need subsidies to produce and to survive from what they produce. Today, for an artist who does a show, live show, the thing still seems safe, but for a composer who lives exclusively on copyright, it is practically impossible. The guy has to be a taxi driver and composer, has to have another profession as well. I think everyone who deals with information in general needs to rethink their models. And music is part of it. Hermano: I read an interview with Bjork, on the release of her next album and there is one thing that I loved. She thinks things are really improving, everything is moving and that the crisis brings many good possibilities for those who know how to use it. She says that it is the best time to work with record label, because no one makes money from record company, then who is on record is because he likes music, is not there for the money. Marisa: So that leaves the idealists, who really likes.
Hermano: I think this album is very well worked out. The sophistication is all due to the simplicity of a... Marisa: Communication... Hermano: Communication! And I remember you singing once here at home. I think you'd just written "Amor I love you and was still surprised by that. I am capable to sing something so simple and so universal, but I think this record is very explicit, very impressive in its pop quality. Marisa: Actually, I think this is a feature of the songs, to communicate with people. Hermano: But I think that proves to be blunt, to be simple, you do not cease to be sophisticated. This is a characteristic of the poetry of Arnaldo Antunes. Marisa: Brown s too. He takes a word and looks like he'll say something very simple, but he transforms it into another meaning by some word games. Arnaldo Antunes does that also. He is strict, it is safe for us when we are composing, that things will be in place, because he knows how to organize. He has the habit of writing, has an intimacy with the great literature than me and Brown. We are more street, more than life itself. It is the books. Hermano: And there's something that is an evolution of his work, but retroactively illuminates other things, because I think that before there could be a doubt, there had also a certain irony in using popular forms of writing, but now I think it has a distance of irony, you do like Marisa: Of course, if I'm here is because I heard Roberto Carlos and Tim Maia all my life. These things are very natural for me. It is the same formation, it is what is printed in the form of feeling the music, living the music. Hermano: The album will be titled "O Que Você Quer Saber De Verdade." And it's not a question, it's a statement. Marisa: It's not a question, it is an object, a goal, it is something you want to know the truth. Hermano: The album is very interesting because behind the apparent simplicity of some songs, the message being passed is very complex, very sophisticated... and not put things in one way or the other, black and white thinks are mixed and... Marisa: It leaves several questions unanswered. Not everything is conclusive, but I think it causes some reflections or at least wants to provoke a reflection. This issue of the relevance of values for each of the hard... talk about choice, about desire,
about self-knowledge and freedom. Hermano: There are many good songs to make you happy, many songs are you talking about yourself... and that somehow it is the mission of the philosophy forever in Greece: teaching how to live well. I think it was much more sophisticated that the origin of this search for truth was disappearing from the difficult wording of the texts. At the same time, there is another side. Pop is self-help; pop teaches us. Marisa: We get in touch with a lot of wisdom through songs. Hermano: And teaching that things are really complex. Vai sem direção, Vai ser livre, A tristeza não resiste or else, A vida é curta, curta a vida. All these things seem very simple. Marisa: So large the sky, so short the life Hermano: If you stop to think about it, is very complex... Marisa: Yes, it is.