Vinyl LP
When Doug Martsch, the guitarist and tunesmith at the helm of Built to Spill, was in need of a backing band prior to embarking on a tour of Brazil in 2018, he was connected with members of Rio de Janeiro psych rock unit Oruã. What unfolded was a match made in indie heaven. Oruã leader Lê Almeida switched from his usual guitar to drums, João Luiz assumed second guitar duties, and João Casaes played the bass alongside Martsch for a lengthy tour. That chance meeting led to Almeida and Casaes stepping in as Martsch’s rhythm section on Built To Spill’s 2022’s album When The Wind Forgets Your Name, introducing them to a wider audience in the process.
Listening to Oruã’s Íngreme (2021) or Romã (2019), it’s easy to fall under the spell of the spaced-out and bright melodies they’ve dubbed “a poor man’s jazz” and “working-class krautrock.” The music of Oruã gives off such a weightless feel that their trippy atmospherics sound like they just floated in from another spiritual dimension. When Oruã lock in on those solid gold bass and drums grooves, and Almeida reels off slinky guitar salvos galore, the krautrock influence is palpable. That said, their MO isn’t restricted to Can worship, as evidenced by the lo-fi dynamics and easy, Guided by Voices-esque hooks.
On Passe, their fourth album, Oruã blow out a sundrenched experimental rock choogle that’s as serene as the seaside air of their Rio de Janeiro hometown. Their admitted 1970s-era German avant-garde and American lo-fi indie obsessions seep through, but behind the ’90s-styled slacker veneer, the lyrics, sung in Portuguese, lay bare themes of resistance; nonspeakers following along on the lyrics sheet are rewarded with abstract wordplay on “Real Grandeza” and “Miragem,” which contrast sobering themes of white privilege and classist struggle with pleasant arrangements. That tightrope act between heavy subject matter and radiant melody, accentuated by deft in-studio tinkering, turns out to be Oruã’s forte. Wrangling together synthesizers, tapes, saxophones, metallophones, and percussion, Almeida and his bandmates pepper tracks like the from-outer-space instrumental “Análise de Conjuntura,” the dubby “Espiritualmente Aceso,” and the dirge-like title track with warped and contorted textures and tones that yield even more layers to an already entrancing listening experience.
