Saudade in Bloomington, MN

Coming off the paranoid and dark
Culture of Fear
, where Orwellian ideas and dub beats filled the speakers,
Thievery Corporation
do a severe about-face with
Saudade
, an album that embraces the bossa nova and Brazilian rhythms, and ups the organic material content of the group's output. Horns, strings, and nylon-string guitars are hired, rather than sampled, on an album where
Thievery
members
Rob Garza
and
Eric Hilton
play mostly guitar and bass. They also curate and produce, coming up with a fine set of wistful tunes and suitable, alluring singers when it comes to the former, but they come up a bit short when it comes to the latter. Vocalist
Lou Lou Ghelichkhani
is a wonderfully subdued siren who can deliver with all the breezy sway required for beautiful songs like "Decollage" and "Bateau Rouge," and yet the production is all strings and vocals up front as everything else falls toward the back, making these bossa nova recordings more "hot" than "warm." Leave a Caipirinha in the sun too long and it's the same kind of almost delicious, but with the same kid gloves being used on the mixing board during "Para Sempre," the sharp sonics actually help the up-and-sashaying performance from
Elin Melgarejo
. When
Shana Halligan
searches the "Depth of My Soul" on the not-so-bossa closer, the strolling bassline is punchy enough to drive home her pathos, and if there are Brazilian spy films, "Claridad" and vocalist
Natalia Clavier
are spot-on for their soundtracks. The woozy "Nos Dois" with
Karina Zeviani
ups the
Thievery Corp
content (nigh time production and notes that dissolve before they disappear) and suggests what could have been if
better balanced its reverence and reverb. ~ David Jeffries