Túlio Borges

Brazilian translator Túlio Borges worships the muse as in the time of daintiness. "I never wanted to work with music, fretting to lose the pleasure in playing," he confesses, now premiering, at the age of 29, with his beautiful, multifaceted album Eu Venho Vagando no Ar [I Come Wandering in the Air], which came out after a long, close relationship with the art. Borges studied piano at the Music School of Brasília, recorded jingles, took part in a jazz band, and in a school choir when he lived in the US—where he toured and won prizes in music festivals. Even though he wrote music since his childhood, only when he was 23 and living in London did he start compiling his work (he had nearly 40 songs), which he would record once back in Brazil. In his homeland, he started to take part in festivals. Among other prizes, he was awarded first place in Brasília’s most important social/cultural private institution, Sesc. He was also awarded second place in the Brazilian Song Week, a very important music festival in São Paulo’s state, which had two important musicians of the Brazilian musical scenario—Dante Ozzetti and Alice Ruiz—as judges.

In one of these festivals, he met a singer from Rio de Janeiro called Vytória Rudan, with whom he became stage partners. In the album, she participates both in the seducing samba Paraty (Ela tem algo mais/ coisa que nada no mundo faz/ trazer paz pra um coração [She’s got something more/ something that nothing in the world does/ she brings peace to a heart]), filled with cuíca, tamborim, and acoustic guitar, and in the fado/tango Zorro (Eu quero amar você e vou/ mas tenho que aprender quem sou/ achar dentro de mim o mapa [I want to love you and I will/ but I’ve got to learn who I am/ to find within me the map]), where the vocal duo is performed with great intensity.

Also sharing the microphones with Túlio comes Ms. Inácia, who raised him and has worked for his family for 35 years. "It’s her that maybe has influenced me the most," he analyzes. "She was the one who brought home black music, popular music, music from the Northeast, and the stories," he tells. She opens the album with Túlio in Pontos, which is a song that is in the public domain; "songs that I caught her singing while working, songs that she hadn’t even realized she knew by heart, so sweet and melodious." Ms. Inácia Maria da Conceição, born in Piauí, solos in the last part of the song. "The idea was to record the parts with accompaniment that would add value to them, and that the recording was a thanks in life for the support that Ms. Inácia gives me, as simply as with a hug and a kiss that cleanse the soul, so sincere and pure they are," defines the soloist.

Eu Venho Vagando no Ar (name taken from one of the songs’ title) bets on this purity primed by talented Túlio’s urbanity. Like in the song resembling a baião Trem [Train], opened by a percussion emulating this means of transport, and has a passage with projected vocal, versed like in a repente (o fogão dos meus desejos fala/ é tão linda que a lindeza estala [the stove of my desires speaks/ she’s so beautiful that the beauty crackles]). From regional Túlio skips to universal in the jazzy Shirley, a profusion of sensual images brought out by the very singer’s guitar and by Geni Castro’s. From this mood, he leaps to the not less involving Birosca, a samba with cuíca, cavaco, clarinet, acoustic guitars, and Leandro Braga’s piano. Não pode essa princesa/ da sandália e dos pés lindos demais/ da blusa tomara que caia/ repare o tamanho da saia/ e o estrago que ela faz [This princess is too much/ with sandals and feet too pretty/ with a strapless blouse/ notice the size of her skirt/ and how much damage is done].

The samba, the urbanity, and the mysticism are the Brazilian-typical qualities in Altar, showered with fluid images (Tantos morros e só um Redentor [So many hills and only one Redeemer]), which is also a duet with Fred Martins, a songwriter from Rio de Janeiro. Há muito choro em mim/ por mil razões que eu sei/ e mais dez mil que herdei [There is much cry in me/ for a thousand reasons that I know/ and ten thousand more that I’ve inherited] adds Toca aí, an ethereal song in Túlio’s gentle vocal sewn together by Rafael dos Anjos’s acoustic guitars. Now the song Sua, paved by the keyboards of the songwriter himself in a dialogue with the digressions of Toninho Ferragutti’s accordion, is among the most breathtaking songs in the album. The web of words in Cicatriz (que saudade me dói, devora/ as lembranças do outono outrora [I miss them so much it hurts, it devours me/ the memories from a fall foregone]), bound together by Leandro Braga’s piano, underscores the communion of the singer/songwriter with his art (as lembranças enramam raízes/ por toda parte [the memories embower roots/ everywhere]). The insinuating cry Ói – Morro de rir, where unexpectedly a horn (Yuri Zuvanov) and a clarinet (Ademir Junior) dialogue with Amoy Ribas’s pandeiro (the same musician who established the percussion in Pontos), prepares the devastating impact of the title track, which closes the record. Prefaced by a suspended fife, the lyrics shine as a sparkling jewel, a manifest of this unique artist.

Deixo que a brisa toque
o sino em mim no tempo
o vento sabe quando é tempo
e quando é silêncio entendo

Tárik de Souza