Please, if mentioning this matrix, link back to us per The Guardian, in order to further the discovery of magnificent musicians in Bahia, and magnificent artists in general everywhere else!
Bio:
Formed at school in Dublin’s late 1980’s, Award-winning band, Kíla, are heralded as one of Ireland’s most innovative and exciting bands. Their unique sound has been ever-evolving, rooted in tradition, yet inspired by a myriad of influences and ideas from all around the world.
Often defined as contemporary Irish World music, Kíla fuse the effects of their own melodies and Irish (Gaeilge) lyrics, Irish folk instruments such as whistles, fiddles, Uilleann pipes, bones and bodhrán with djembe, congas, drums, mandolins, brass, and acoustic/electric/ bass guitars. Kíla’s eight members come from the differing musical backgrounds of traditional, classical, and rock.
The result is a fresh blend of freewheeling instrumentals, furious jigs, and primal rhythms that transcend the traditional boundaries of Irish music.
Kíla have worked extensively in TV and film. In 2020 they won the IFTA for Best Original Score for the soundtrack or Arracht (TG4). Their most notable collaborations have been with French composer Bruno Coulais on the soundtracks for Cartoon Saloon’s three Oscar-nominated animated films The Secret of Kells (2010), Song of the Sea (2014), and most recently for Wolfwalkers (2020).
These are pathways, originating in the sprawling cultural matrix of Brazil (Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazik, Arab, European, Asian...), integrating cultural matrixes worldwide.
Matrix ground zero is the Recôncavo of Bahia...virtually unknown center of gravity circumscribing Bahia's Bay of All Saints...end of voyage for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history...birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. Many countries are happier than Brazil, but none are more joyous.
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced (that's me below left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).