Pensar
é fazer música (To think is to make music) is the title of a vignette
that closes and that also lends its name to this record by Paulinho Mosca,
his second record after leaving the "Inimigos do Rei" (The Enemies
of the King) where he first began his career as a musician, author, and
singer.
To think is to make music, make music think music, think the think and make music, make the make and think it as music, and so forth in one thousand combinations succeeding one another in the full plasma of hours, days, months before, and after. I have spent a lot of time with Paulinho over the last few months, and I have been witness to his profound interest in incorporating the variety/complexity of a being in the world, in man, in things, in the mystery of all and a thirst to make patent/reveal all mysteries. I know how much effort he has dispended to absorb, commune, to share in what might be within his reach through music, books, cinema, video, in society with youngsters like himself and with the somewhat elder as I. Honestly, Paulinho conveys an impression that he is trying to make up for lost(?) time spent in a school. In any case, the impression gleaned is that his is a post-intensive course today, with pleasure and devotion in the music school of life with Totality as major subject.
His singing issues from pop-rock where he first began for multiple expeditions. Rhythm, melody, song bear an imprinted mark of all Lulus, Ritas, Fábios and others, their junior and more recent. His fantasy leads him, however, to wend his way through the varied woodlands of others, his elder, or yet his junirochildBrazil, such is the musical diversity, of samba-canção, baião, boleros, and as many Eros! And yes, important it is: streaks of lightning vitality in flashes bursting forth in Paulinho's songs; dream bubbles of light, of gratitude, of tenderness for this wonderful world of popular song of all time, and of all spaces.
Even as I scribble this "Hi there, to my fans", I am listening absentminded to the record in my tape recorder. The bands succeed each other, and it is as if a taste of love as powder, syrup or paste were to be in that same sound, available, ingredient, for a an iceshake of delight delicious loveflavors!
Venom there is in Paulinho's music. Potions he mixes - as would an apothecary a mild balm. Paulinho would have none lethal: "ills of the world" carefully dosed to poison noone; the "ills of this world" dosed out in minimum minute portions as with a transhomeopathy against apathy, or as a magic potion against virotic aversions of our day-to-day; the "ills of the world" as a kind of mustard to a "macworld music sandwich".
It would not do to take up all of your time. Much to do, much to think. To work, to light, and to shadow, as Paulinho would have.
Gilberto Gil