Brazilian new music festival Novas Frequências will do it’s first international showcase in April, bringing 2 Brazilian acts from Rio de Janeiro to the UK. Power improv trio Chinese Cookie Poets and tropical no wave Negro Leo open Glasgow’s Counterflows Festival on April 2nd and then play Cafe Oto on April 4th.
This showcase marks the first partnership between Novas Frequências and Counterflows, an action supported by the Transform UK-BR arts program run by the British Council. Encouraged by the British Council, this showcase marks the beginning of a collaboration between Novas Frequências and Counterflows. Longer term, both festivals are planning to develop possibilities for Scottish artists to perform in Brazil and also produce some kind of new collaboration between Scottish and Brazilian artists exploring shared and differing cultural processes and methods of expression.
Chinese Cookie Poets is a Brazilian trio from Rio de Janeiro that started in 2010 with Marcos Campello (electric guitar), Felipe Zenícola (electric bass) and Renato Godoy (drums). A surly rock, physical and ludic; A rocker free jazz, with a stop-and-go esthetic and breathtaking dynamics in short compositions. A live concert from Chinese Cookie Poets is always a blend of brutal intensity and meticulous interventions with strictly arranged compositions but with blank spots for improvised sections without sounding as two diverse areas.
Based in Rio de Janeiro, Negro Leo is a singer, songwriter and musician from Maranhão. Influenced by Peter Brötzmann’s free jazz, by Caetano Veloso and Jards Macalé’s “tropicalismo”, and by James Chance and Arto Lindsay´s no wave, Negro Leo has been highlighted in Rio´s scene alongside bands linked to Quintavant, an event that happens at Audio Rebel and includes artists such as Cadu Tenorio, Bemônio and Chinese Cookie Poets itself.
