Ricardo Tete

If music were coffee, Ricardo Tete’s music would be a subtle blend. A learned and an innocent union of elements that aren’t often brought together. Sweetness and mystery. A certain naivete ;bright colours and childhood ; a dash of intellect, of distance, of crystal. Instantly appealing melodies and multilayered lyrics. This is not far away from the ‘magic realism’ of South American authors like Borges, Cortazar and Garcia Marquez. His musical influences ? Arto Lindsay, Jose Miguel Wisnik and of course all the great names of bossa nova and the Tropicalia movement, without forgetting mythical figures of the São Paulo music scene like Arnaldo Antunes and Tom Z... The whole crowned by the voice of a devoted fan of Chet Baker and João Gilberto. Ricardo Teperman, a.k.a. Ricardo Tete, grew up in an oasis of calm houses in the midst of the wild urban landscape of Sao Paulo. “The city is so polluted that the sky is always an uncertain colour. It has a punk-like beauty.” Of course, there are the social contrasts, the violence... In his own little world, Ricardo knew he was privileged. He started playing music at the age of four. He hung around the literary scene. Overdosed on European auteur films: Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel series, La Double Vie de Veronique... But something about all this comfort left him dissatisfied... Five years ago, he headed for France. There he met his wife, and the singer and jazzman David Linx, the skilful producer of this haunting album. It was well worth crossing the Atlantic for. “We had to wait until certain musicians that we absolutely wanted were available. Once everyone was united, everything went quite quickly. The basic tracks were recorded in a week, more or less live. We had spoken and dreamed about this record so long that once we were in the studio everything just came out naturally.” Pierre Fageolle