Brevity is the soul of wit, as Ana Frango Elétrico proved quite clearly last year on her half-hour album »Me Chama De Gato Que Eu Sou Sua« of charmingly condensed Brazilian boogie. Four years earlier, she’d already proved it on »Little Electric Chicken Heart«. It’s just that the album was only released in Brazil and Japan. British label Mr Bongo has now rectified this. Stylistically, Ana Frango Elétrico borrows heavily from the sixties, softly mixing rock, jazz and samba with seemingly hand-played instruments, often with brass sections, sometimes processed and often used in a chamber music setting. Most of the material is written by the »electric chicken« herself, as the artist’s name translates.
The historical necessity of re-releasing this album in a grand style can be quickly understood by simply listening to it. The vocals, the melodies, the arrangements and the groove: everything is spot on, nothing sounds dated. Nostalgia might have something to do with it, but if the past you are longing for never existed in the first place, strictly speaking you can’t simply copy it. And even if it did: Ana Frango Elétrico makes it her own, especially with her voice.
