Rastilho
Kiko Dinucci
2020
Rankings
Why This Album Matters
Released in 2020, Kiko Dinucci's Rastilho establishes itself as a fundamental work in contemporary Brazilian music, redefining the boundaries of samba and song from a 'punk' perspective and deeply rooted in Afro-Brazilian ancestry. The album is a visceral dive into acoustic guitar, where Dinucci absorbs the lineage of great Brazilian guitarists like Dorival Caymmi, João Gilberto and Baden Powell, but filters them through his raw and vigorous musical vision. 'Rastilho' is a work that explores folk music textures with a percussive and dense style, exuding an energy that harks back to Kiko Dinucci's experience in São Paulo's punk scene. It is a record where the wood of the acoustic guitar sings, overlapping the vocals and lyrics, creating a sound that the artist himself describes as a 'samba sujo' or 'samba torto', retrieving the essence of Brazilian music's most central instrument with a new guise and an explosive force.
Context
Kiko Dinucci is a prominent and innovative name in the Brazilian music scene, known for his work in seminal bands like Metá Metá and Passo Torto. His career is marked by the combination of elements from Brazilian music, candomblé, punk rock, and free jazz, as well as notable collaborations with artists such as Tom Zé, Criolo and Elza Soares. Rastilho emerges as his second solo album, following Cortes Curtos (2017), and represents a return to the acoustic guitar. The project was born during a period when Dinucci, recovering from leg surgery, made the acoustic guitar his daily companion, stepping away from the electric guitar and rediscovering the nylon-string instrument.
Recording
The album Rastilho was recorded and mixed between September and November 2019, at Estúdio Minduca, using a 100% analogue process, on tape. This production choice sought to emulate the techniques of Brazilian records from the 60s and 70s, with special attention to the echo, delay and reverb effects that characterised the great recordings of the time. The raw and 'dirty' sound that marks the work is intentional, incorporating elements such as nail scratches, grunts and the sound of the strings hitting the guitar neck, which Dinucci sees as an ode to São Paulo, where 'everything is distorted and things are wrong, but somehow it works'. Production was handled by Kiko Dinucci himself, with recording and mixing by Bruno Buarque and André Magalhães.
Songs
The lyrics of Rastilho delve into Afro-Brazilian culture, exploring themes such as slavery, Brazilian revolutions, candomblé and evangelical Christianity. The opening track, 'Exu Odara', is a traditional candomblé theme, absorbed by Dinucci in rituals, and serves as a powerful declaration of intent for the album, highlighting the fundamental importance of Exu in Yoruba cosmogony. Other songs like 'Olodé' salute hunter orishas with a strong Yoruba chorus, featuring contributions from Juçara Marçal, Dulce Monteiro, Maraísa and Gracinha Menezes, while 'Tambú e Candongueiro' and 'Gaba' also bring deep references to African culture. The album cover, by Pablo Saborido, featuring rotting fruit, dialogues with the title track, which closes the record with an image of a tropical and putrefied Brazil, calling for an urgent reaction in the face of the socio-political scenario of the time.
Legacy
Rastilho was widely acclaimed by critics, being considered by many as one of the best Brazilian records of 2020. It was even voted best album of the year by the Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte (APCA). The album solidified Kiko Dinucci's position as one of the most innovative and prolific artists in contemporary Brazilian music. His 'afro-punk' approach and the retrieval of acoustic sounds with a noisy and percussive aesthetic opened new paths for the Brazilian acoustic guitar, charting a course that fuses the traditional and the experimental. The participation of renowned collaborators such as Juçara Marçal, Ava Rocha and Ogi also contributed to the album's richness and recognition.