Regurgitator headed down south to Brazil during the past year to
record their sixth album - 'Love & Paranoia'. Welcome to a jungle
of 80s inspired, keyboard driven pop-rock tunes featuring opening
track 'Blood & Spunk'. Quan, Ben, Pete, and latest addition Seja
Vogel (from Sekiden) on keyboard duty packed their bags and jetted
off into a great unknown to produce one of their most stylistically
consistent albums ever. So after a string of B locations - Brisbane,
Bangkok, Byron Bay, Britain, Bubble - it was Brazil's turbulent hotbed
of Rio de Janeiro that provided the base for this latest musical manifestation.
Amid the spectacular beauty of this city, and rampant crime and poverty,
they found themselves in a small studio camped under the looming Corcovado
and the arms of the iconic Christo Redentor spruiking their wares.
Never pedestrian in attitude or approach, regurgitator have always
attempted to locate some element of the sublime or extraordinary in
their album recordings. No matter what one thinks of their album output,
there has never been a sense of going through the motions for the
sake of just another release. From the very beginning, every complete
album piece has been predicated on producing a unique situation, a
displacement to encourage a response beyond the ordinary.
So with this, their first romance album, the decision was made that
if there was going to be a sixth album then "let's go to Brazil".
Ben threw up the idea, Paul (manager) set out to manifest it, googling
"brazilian engineer" and coming up with Didie Cunha on MySpace,
sourcing a studio, arranging the travel and accommodation. So all
was set, money transferred via a convoluted system to people we had
never met or spoken to, as we jetted off into the world with latest
permanent addition on keyboards Seja (from Sekiden), via New York
to witness the US (mis)interpretation of Band in a Bubble. We arrive
in Sao Paulo to receive messages from Peter whose 1am arrival was
met with no one other than the circling sharks of taxi drivers barking
"taxi" at a never-ending rate for 10 hours or so prior to
our eventual arrival… found sitting on his suitcase on the upper
level of this 70s architectural marvel of an airport frozen in time.
Still no Didie to meet us and things begin to look a little dire…
fortunately a case of expecting us all the following day; so after
some cab negotiations we set off into the amazing nature of Rio -
looming mountains, vast favellas, Oscar Niemeyer's 70's scifi architectural
vibe - to find the studio perched at the foot of the cliffs of the
Corcovado under the gracious arms of the Christo Rendentor. We are
welcomed by Didie… and studio operators Guilherme, Felipe, Ales,
Bruno and their ever-present assistants Paulo and Augustus - all warm
friendly people excited by this international moment of collaboration.
The studio initially suggests a more difficult scenario than anticipated
but this is offset against the warmth and excitement of our hosts
regaling us with stories of life in Rio, the local music scene, favella's,
drug gangs, abductions and stray bullets. The studio is also home
to rehearsal studios where a large proportion of Rio's musicians come
to practice, jam and hang out. We head down to our apartment in Leblon
(next to Ipanema) again revealing the luxury of a time gone and the
decades of economic turbulence… we wander and eat… this
city alludes to a wild intensity of life, a city of extremes mirrored
in its geographical state.
The recording starts immediately, the studio perched high on the
hillside provides a spectacular vista of the city and an inspiration
to the music that begins to quickly unfold. The songs quickly take
shape, as we bounce through the world of Rio: visits to clubs to see
local music artists; experiencing the nightlife in the human spectacle
of Lapa; a trip to the top of Corcovado where we shot the album photos;
a day at the soccer where at half time a little old man (about 70)
came out and bounced a soccer ball all around the field one foot after
another the entire half an hour without dropping it, and when he had
finished someone just ran out and grabbed the ball off him and led
him off the field and nobody clapped for him... (except us); and an
invitation to a favella percussion school where over 100 people played
percussion in this huge pink and green hall. Then before it was time…
the long flight back to Australia beckoned where the album was finally
mixed in Sydney at Velvet Sounds by Magoo and Anthony The; and mastered
in New York at West West Side by Alan Douches.
'Love & Paranoia' is out now on Valve/MGM.
