Each new record by Domenico Lancellotti (1972, Brazil) must be celebrated as a\nlittle gift. The Rio de Janeiro\-born, a demanded drummer (regular musician for\nGilberto Gil) and one of the most inspired contemporary songwriters in his\ncountry, Domenico owns a short but stunning catalog, either solo or along with\nhis pals Kassin and Moreno Veloso (+2). \x27Raio\x27 means his comeback three years\nafter the hailed \x27The Good Is A Big God\x27 for Luaka Bop. A brilliant new collection\nof songs recorded from his new home in Lisbon, where Lancellotti\x27s musical\nparameters continue the path of his rich musical universe, that is, his personal\nupdate on all the best music the MPB has provided, with Joao Donato or Milton\nNascimento as main references, sailing always through seductive and playful\ntrademark orchestrations. Domenico explains the reasons on \x27Raio\x27...\n\x27\x27In 2018, Lúcia Koch invited me to set up an art installation for the Kansas City\nBiennial.\nWe chose a vacant lot in the ancient black neighbourhood, the same place where\nCharlie Parker was born, and the first black newspaper was founded in a building\nclose to this lot full of weeds and trash.\nFor this project I created 6 weeded and cleaned sound mushrooms that were\nburied in the ground. Each mushroom was made of 5 speakers set up in circles,\nwith one of the bass speakers in the middle.\nIn order to get an idea of the complete display of the musical themes, people\nshould move around.\nSome of the tracks on this album were part of this installation which we called\nDynamo!\n\x27\x27I moved to Portugal in 2019 and from here I kept recording. I was almost done\nwith the record when the COVID\-19 crisis arose, therefore I started working\nremotely, Nina Miranda sang two songs from his home in London, the Polish\npianist Piotr Zabrodsky recorded piano and keys also from his home in Warsaw,\nDaniel Carvalho mixed and masterized the album at his studio in Rio de Janeiro.\nThis record, called Raio, was developed since then.\nIt is a record about permanent transformation. Everything needs to change, that\nis all\x27\x27
