Floresta

Mia Doi Todd had long been inspired by Brazilian music and culture, and upon meeting drummer/percussionist Mauricio Takara in 2009, the two struck up a friendship that led to joint performances. In 2014, the L.A.-based Todd spent 10 days in Sao Paulo, Brazil, recording an album of her favorite Brazilian songs concerning nature. An all-Brazilian band with Fabiano do Nascimento on seven-string nylon guitar, Takara and Rogerio Martins on percussion, and Meno del Picchia on bass worked with Todd in bringing songs that were the soundtrack to their lives to new life. As usual, Todd provides her beautifully nuanced vocals to well-known and obscure Brazilian tunes.

Floresta (2014) is an album of covers of some of Mia’s favorite Brazilian songs, featuring Fabiano do Nascimento on seven-string guitar and Mauricio Takara on percussion. It was recorded at Estudio el Rocha in São Paulo. Review by Thom Jurek: The material encompasses the rainbow offering of Brazilian song. While there are classics, including Tom Jobim's "Chovendo Na Roseira" and Tom Zé's "Menina Amanhã de Manhã”—both sambas from different sides of the spectrum—there are also traditional songs such as “Ewe.” Interestingly, despite the band's pedigree, there is an unmistakable, laid-back, L.A. post-hippie feel here. It's loose, but focused on nuance and essence. Todd's reading of Joyce's “Misterios" seamlessly melds bossa and MPB. While Caetano Veloso's "Luz du Sol" is as lithe as one might expect, the opposite is true in the two songs by Milton Nascimento. "Portal da Cor" is poignant and striking in a far more skeletal arrangement, while "Cais" is more structured than the songwriter's ballad from Clube Da Esquina, yet no less dreamy. There is a gorgeous version of Antonio Candeia's "Preciso Me Encontrar.” With her airy, slightly smoky alto, Todd approaches this material with respect and as someone to whom these songs mean a great deal (check her reading of Dori Caymmi's profound "O Vento"). As an interpreter she sings like she wants to share these songs, rather than leave her mark on them. The academic construct of authenticity isn't an issue because her encounter with this material is emotionally true. Floresta is a gem. It brings the honesty of Brazilian music in all its harmonic and poetic richness to listeners without artifice or affectation.

These exercises and a lifelong love of the country's music went into Floresta, a covers collection of Brazilian songs, a foregone conclusion.