Text by Carlos Albuquerque
BaianaSystem’s environment is the street. It was on the slopes and alleys of Salvador that the band grew up and blossomed. Anyone lucky enough to attend a performance by BaianaSystem, especially during carnival, knows how its sound boils live and how it feeds on interaction with the public. But it´s pandemic time, not party time. The hillsides and alleys are deserted. The shows are suspended. And carnival has become an agonizing reminder of collective celebrations that no one knows when will happen again.
In this desolate scenario, unthinkable a year ago, when BaianaSystem’s third album “O futuro não demora” was released, its remix version, “Futuro dub”, hits the (empty) streets, The good news is that, in a time of so much deprivation, when the future gained an extra dose of uncertainty, listening to the new album – at home, of course – can be a strange and thought-provoking experience. “Dub is what sharpens our senses and we have been putting it into our work for a long time,” explained Russo Passapusso in an interview with the website Tenho Mais Discos Que Amigos.
Under the command of Recife producer and DJ Buguinha Dub, “Futuro dub” is a fantastic voyage inside BaianaSystem’s organism, a tour through MPB, samba-reggae, hip-hop, ragga and ijexá cells. Having previously worked with the group on its eponymous debut album, Buguinha reconstructs the general design of “O futuro não demora”, without changing his essence.
From the first (“Água”) to the last (“Fogo”) track, the album seems to be submerged in a broth of delay and echo (precisely the effect which repeats and spreads, ad infinitum, the fake news disseminated by neo-fascists in Brazil nowadays). There are no spikes in psychedelic energy. Buguinha’s “adubagem” is polished, elegant and without excesses, in a style reminiscent of another studio wizard, Bill Laswell. Most of the original vocals are phagocytized, swallowed by Buguinha’s effects, leaving only lint floating through the free spaces. The deep water atmosphere gives another dimension to songs like “Bola de cristal”, “Sulamericano” and “Saci”. But the point where “Futuro dub” gives goosebumps is exactly where the crossing ends, in the prophetic tone of “Fogo” lyrics, (“The future doesn’t take long … It’s already happened … look what has already happened), the samba-reggae beats dissolved in Jamaican acid, half a dream, half a nightmare.