Adriana Calcanhotto Errante LP

For 30 years now, Adriana Calcanhotto has been at the forefront of a new generation of female Brazilian singer-songwriters who are equally accomplished as composers, instrumentalists, and poets. Two years ago, the Corona lockdown in Brazil forced Adriana to record her latest album Só ("Alone") under unusual circumstances. That is to say, in a virtual collaboration with other musicians who - just like herself - had been confined in domestic quarantine. The album, of course, underlined the loneliness experienced during this time. Now, the two-time Latin Grammy winner (in 2006 and 2010) returns with a much more outgoing effort, aptly titled Errante ("Errant").

On her 2023 studio album, her 13th so far, Adriana Calcanhotto is wandering between an array of different styles (everything from bossa nova, samba-canção, xote, maxixe, samba-de-roda to rock, pop, and funk carioca) and topics (love and the end of it, flirting, loss, mourning, self-reflection). At times, she quotes lines from Oswald de Andrade's famous "Manifesto Antropófago" (in "Prova dos Nove"), Portuguese poet Luís de Camões (in "Era isso?"), fellow-musician Gilberto Gil (in "Nômade"), or draws inspiration from an art installation by Lygia Clark (in "Nômade"). On Errante, Adriana offers eleven new originals that draw a self-portrait of the artist.

The album is marked by Adriana's choice for joyous songs. The outgoing spirit does not only show in the songs, almost all of them conceived and composed since 2020. The recording sessions took place in the Rocinante recording studio (located in Araras, Petrópolis, hidden in the Serra dos Órgãos National Park and surrounded by the Atlantic Forest) and provided Adriana with an opportunity to reconnect personally with other musicians, something she very much missed during the pandemic.

Therefore, Adriana was especially eager to make Errante, a real "band album." To achieve this goal the singer and guitarist (who is playing instruments that once belonged to national treasures Nara Leão and Orlando Silva) teamed up with a couple of trusted musicians who are steeped in the various traditions of Brazilan music, yet no less familiar with contemporary styles: Alberto Continentino (bass, piano, and lyre), Davi Moraes (electric and acoustic guitars), Domenico Lancellotti (drums and percussion) - the very same band that, in 2011, had already appeared on her Latin Grammy-nominated album O Micróbio Do Samba - and a horn section made up of Diogo Gomes (trumpet), Jorge Continentino (woodwinds), and Marlon Sette (trombone). On "Lovely," the album's only song with English lyrics, they are joined by special guest Rodrigo Amarante and his mandolin. For a while the studio became their home where they all together created the sound of this album in dialogues that were essentially musical.

"I would show them a song and they would play it without any of us saying a word," explains Adriana. "We didn't need to have gatherings, we didn't need to discuss how many times we would play a chorus, that sort of thing. Alberto uses to say that after I presented a song to them, we all were waiting for Domenico to say: 'Dude!' [she imitates him making it sound like 'eureka!'] Then everyone took their place and we started playing [laughs]. It was a dream. Everything very spontaneous."