Cabana: Vinyl LP

Label: Far Out Recordings
Release Date: 7th June

One of the best Brazilian/MPB records of the year and coming straight outta Brighton from Wax Machine's Lau Ro. It has that classic bossa nova, that shuffle, that air of exotica with jazz and soft rock but it also finds itself falling into a more psychedelic folk and ambient path at times, making it one of the most unique yet comforting records we've heard all year. 

Having spent their formative years in Sao Paulo Brazil, as a teenager, Lau
Ro found themself uprooted from their home - Moving with their family
to Europe in search of a better quality of life, their story was like that of
many immigrants in the same position - Lau Ro's parents found work in
factories and cleaning jobs, for the first few years in the North of Italy and
then in Brighton on England's Southern coast.
 
"We never managed to visit back home, so my connection to Brazil became largely
made up of childhood memories and my fascination with all the 60s and 70s music
I could find from there.

In Brighton, the young non-binary singer and composer would immerse themself
amongst the city's vanguard of free- thinking artists and musicians. Lau Ro
formed Wax Machine whose prefigurative, psychedelic community provided a
glimmer of countercultural hope amid a backdrop of national political decline.
From 2020-23, Wax Machine birthed three cult-favourite albums in as many years;
indebted in part to their British psychedelic forebears from progressive folk, rock
and jazz yore. But the kernel of Lau's Brazilian sound was already beginning to
blossom across Wax Machine's releases. Now, taking root deeper still, Lau Ro
steps forward with their debut album: Cabana.
 
Named after the small wood cabin at the bottom of their garden where the album
was recorded, Cabana is a deeply personal record of memory, self-discovery and
imagination. Melancholy and hope combine across ten tracks of dreamy bossa,
ambient folk, fuzzy tropicalia and majestic MPB. The music is swathed in
masterful string arrangements and trippy electronics in equal part, while Lau Ro's
delicate, yet quietly confident voice takes acerbic aim (in both English and
Portuguese) at polluted city life, while dreaming of a utopia, rich with nature and
wildlife.
 
Like the musical equivalent of semantic drift, Lau Ro's displacement led to the
creation of another Brazil. A mythic place in Lau's soul, as they put it, "where the
sunshine and joy of my childhood remained untapped." Lau continues: "It's music
that might sound as if it came out of a parallel universe Brazil, rather than its
modern day landscape. I am nowadays rediscovering Brazil, going back as often as
I can and trying to stay connected to these different parts of the world and myself."