First off: a huge thank you for Sara Mautone for cluing me in to this album. I say this, because when you listen to Nina Catarina’s Acordei Com Preguiça I think you’re getting to hear something special. What I believe you’re hearing is part of that ongoing Brazilian musical evolution, influenced by the proximity, culture, and evolution of its Caribbean neighbors. I say all this, because it’s with great pains I have to announce: I’ve found very little about Nina Catarina, herself, to share.
Acordei Com Preguiça was released in 1994 by Continental, a Warner Music Brasil offshoot venturing into promoting more regional Brazilian styles. Thankfully, Nina found her footing on a label that put her in the studio with musicians like Bonzo Barreti, Sylvia Patricia, and Reinaldo Barriga, all Nordestes in tune towards updating MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) with newer musical styles better suited for a fresh decade.
Nina is, of course, the central piece to Acordei Com Preguiça. Without her voice and her writing we wouldn’t get some of the absolutely unique, dance-inflected gems presented on it. On opener, “Eu Não Quero Dançar (Barboza – A Dança)”, you can feel the heavy, groove-oriented, rhythm wouldn’t hit as hard, if Nina’s hard-nosed range wasn’t the one taking the lead. The powerful feel of Bahia’s axé allowed Nina to cover those in-between regions of sensuality, meditation, and mutability. “Quando Será” is the perfect example of that.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Nina’s work reminds me of Fernanda Abreu’s, thankfully, increasingly, more largely-known early work. You hear it in songs like, “Pecados Do Passado”, where lovers rock functions as another musical palette cleanser, presenting a different, quite lovely side to this uniquely Brazilian album.
Far from being a hyper-focused dance album, Nina Catarina’s input here works as an increasingly personal mood work that has its evolutions. Songs speak of dealing with depression (as in the title track), of finding moments of love in self, in ragga (as on the joyful “Me Beije Que O Verão Chegou”), or reimagine a pop standard (as on her cover of Tony Bennett’s “Blue Velvet”) as an even dreamier, more tropical-tinged meditation, all in a way that feels as part of the many faces and phases, of one Nina Catarina.
Some of my favorite moments on this album are when all those involved have their way of finding spots to connect all the dots. What can one say of Nina’s “Eu Amo Você”, a track that does so? On it, you hear Ivorian, Alpha Blondy’s Jamaican-tinged original, “Afriki”, itself a resurrection of Junior Murvin’s “Police & Thieves” riddim, liquify into something else and reconstitute itself into this glorious Brazilian ode to Africa and Jamaica. Nina does it something impressive: transforming a brilliant anti-apartheid song into another necessary one – one affirming her allyship, kinship, and genuine affection for the brethren and sistren inspiring this album. As you can imagine, it’s another beautiful song, in a collection of them, in an impressive album.
The more you listen to Acordei Com Preguiça, the more you have to figure that the year it was made and the country it was in, perhaps, made it fall into this golden zone. Songs like the gorgeous, “Soltos Pela Noite”, a breezy mixture of MPB, dub, and post-disco music, could have only existed in a new tradition born from those looking for new sources to draw tributaries from, whose roots are able to go deeper and wider.
As for my hope: my belief is that the strength of this wonderful record can lead us back, here or elsewhere, where Nina is sharing her side of the story.