Artist: Nois 4

Date of Release:

Catalogue no: CCD79784

Label: Candid

Price: £13

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Track Listing

Appearances by

Ingrid Laubrock

Gente by Nois features:Monica Vasconcelos:vocals, Ingrid Laubrock : saxophones,backing vocals, Ife Tolentino : guitars, backing vocals, Chris Wells : drums,percussion,moog bass,backing vocals

Guest musicians form Brazil:

Guinga : guitar on 1,6 & 7,solo introduction on 7,voice on 4
Swami Jr. : bass on 1,6,7,9 & 10,7 string guitar on4
Toninho Ferraguti : accordeon on 3,6,7, & 10
Guilherme Kastrup : percussion on 1,4 & 10
Webster Santos on 4

Basquiat Strings on 2 & 5: Emma Smith,Victoria Fifield,Jenny May : violins; Ben Davis : cello; Richard Pryce : double bass

The album was recorded in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in December 2003

Reviews

09/09/2005 Robert Wyatt The Times

3: Treasure Island;Music;Sounds

Every week, a star gets to fly the flag for an obscure masterpiece. Come in, Robert Wyatt, on Nois 4's Gente:
"It's from this century, and I know they're based in London. Nois 4's singer is called Monica Vasconcelos and she's very good-looking, which I honestly didn't know when I bought it -the cover is a pair of peasant's feet. That's very Brazilian. They continued the hippy idealism in a left-leaning, innocent way that didn't happen anywhere else.

"If you don't like Astrud Gilberto, you won't like this. That was the pop music I listened to before I got into black American music. I was just hitting puberty when Girl from Ipanema came out so, well...blimey. But I prefer Nois 4. It's more traditional, terrific percussion and a splendid string quartet. Also it doesn't have that Stan Getz heavy breathing, sleazy sax sound which reminds one of tourists going around a red-light district. Ingrid Laubrock plays the soprano sax very well. She just chooses the good notes, like Wayne Shorter, really fresh.

"I love music in other languages, especially Portuguese because it's an archaic, slightly awkward language."

19/11/2004 John L Walters The Guardian

Nois4 Gente

Despite the name, the music of Monica Vasconcelos's quartet Nois 4 doesn't grab you with vocal histrionics or thundering riffs. But their album Gente (Candid,13.99) does things that few other World albums attempt. Each track is distinctive, exploring different aspects of Brazilian rhythm, timbre and melody and wordplay. And Vasconcelos's voice is charming and tuneful, but with an element of reticence and taste you don't expect from a Latin-jazz-fusion frontperson. Vasconcelos has class, but she doesn't make a big deal about being classy.

In some respects she is like a curator of Brazilian music, rediscovering her compatriots' sound and reinterpreting it in a coolly individual way. Influencia do Jackson, the wordy, high-energy opener is one of two tracks written by Aldir Blanc and special guest Guinga. Vasconcelos's
rapid delivery is intense, almost rap-like. The intricate words deal with schools, sexism, football and corruption. Relampiano (by Lenine and Paulo Moska) is about childhood poverty, the story of a child selling chewing gum by urban traffic-lights in the rain, given extra emotional power by Ben Davis's Basquiat Strings and some clever mixing from drummer/producer Chris Wells. Com A Perna No Mundo (by Luiz Gonzaga Jr) has an engaging, rough-hewn choir; Jobim's Cancao Em Modo Menor features Ingrid Laubrock's lovely tenor sax against Davis's poised
strings. (Davis plays cello in Laubrock's own band.)

Nois 4's line-up comprises Vasconcelos, Laubrock, Wells and Brazilian guitarist Ife Tolentino.They are based in the UK, but recorded Gente in Brazil, where they recruited musicians such as Guinga (who is returning to tour with them next year)
and accordionist Toninho Ferragutti. The album includes folky, Foro-inflected pieces such as Cha de Panela (also by Guinga and Blanc), gentle ballads, sweet waltzes and chilled, spacey grooves such as Leve, with Laubrock on Wayne Shorter-ish soprano sax.
(It is not so much that she sounds like Shorter, more that, like him, she avoids playing the bleeding obvious). Nois 4 have made a clever, multi-layered album that grows on you with each listen.