Directed by Rodrigo Amarante
Art by Rodrigo Amarante
Animations by Galen Pehrson and Nina McNeely
Landscape pictures by Eliot Lee Hazel
#video
styofa doing anything

No title available

No title available
Sade Olutola
h
i don't do bad sauce passes
One Nice Bug Per Day
tumblr dot com
todays bird
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

Janaina Medeiros
we're not kids anymore.
No title available
sheepfilms
dirt enthusiast
AnasAbdin

Andulka
d e v o n

Product Placement
YOU ARE THE REASON
seen from United States
seen from Argentina
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Germany
seen from France
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia

seen from United Kingdom

seen from Thailand
seen from Germany

seen from Malaysia

seen from Greece
seen from United States

seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
@rodrigoamarantemusic
Directed by Rodrigo Amarante
Art by Rodrigo Amarante
Animations by Galen Pehrson and Nina McNeely
Landscape pictures by Eliot Lee Hazel
#video
Tardei
Directed by R. Amarante & André Tentugal, Edited by Marcela Amarante.
HOURGLASS
Directed by R.Amarante, co-directed and photographed by Illum Kola, Edited by Marcela Amarante.
CAVALO out now!
Get it at your local record store (the vinyl has a free download coupon), or digitally here:
Amazon
iTunes
Still from the Hourglass video. Another Amarante Bros. production
New tour dates in Europe and in the US in the Shows page!
CAVALO is now available for pre-order in the USA and Canada.
iTunes: MP3 *Instant download of 'Hourglass' included.
Amazon: LP - CD - MP3
World Release Dates!
May 5th : EU / UK / 日本 / Latino America / Skandinavien / Australia / South Africa
May 6th : United States / Canada
La Blogothèque / Les Concert A Emporter - Paris
Vó Meréia em todo seu esplendor.
Grandma Meréia in all her splendor.
(Texto em portugues abaixo) These images were shot by my father and my mother in 75 and 76 during carnaval in a town called Saquarema near Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The people you see in these shots are my family members, parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins and close friends, people who were my childhood heroes. Every year they put together this parade you see (with all costumes made by my grandmother and her sister!), in a small samba-school called Saquarema De Banda that started with family and friends and soon became the biggest one in town. That name is a pun in portuguese because the word "Banda" means band but "De Banda" means crooked, bent, wasted, and you can see here why they chose that name. They were all clowns, children in spirit. This was how I grew up and as soon as I could hold a stick I was playing with them on the parade. These were the happiest times in my childhood and me and my sister are forever marked by them. My sister Marcela, who directed and edited this video with me, plays now in one of the most celebrated samba-schools in Brazil called Mangueira and it was for her that I wrote this song. Maná is the grace, the gift, and Má is her, Marcela. This video is an homage to those who were part of this parade every year and especially the older ones who made it all happen and are a proof that despite our belief that we are so modern and free on the 21st century our parents and grandparents were a lot less square than we are. Well, at least mine.
~
Essas imagens foram feitas por meu pai e minha mãe em 75 e 76 durante o carnaval em Saquarema, município do estado do Rio de Janeiro. Essas pessoas que se vêem aqui são minha família, meus pais e avós, tios, primos e amigos, gente maravilhosa, meus grandes heróis na infância. Todo ano eles formavam esse bloco chamado Saquarema de Banda. Dá pra ver muito claro porque ao invés de chamar de Banda de Saquarema eles inverteram o nome. Todos eles de banda, alguns mesmo entortados, todos palhaços, crianças em espírito. Foi assim que eu cresci e tão logo eu consegui segurar uma baqueta passei a tocar com eles no bloco. Esses foram os momentos mais felizes da minha infância e eu e minha irmã fomos pra sempre marcados por essa época, essas pessoas. Minha irmã, com quem dirigi e editei esse vídeo é hoje ritmista da Estação Primeira de Mangueira e foi pra ela que eu escrevi essa música. Maná é a graça, a benção, e Má é ela, Marcela. Esse vídeo é uma homenagem à todos que fizeram parte desse bloco, especialmente os mais velhos que faziam tudo acontecer, uma prova de que apesar de nos sentirmos muito modernos e livres no século 21 nossos pais e avós eram muito menos caretas do que somos. Bom, pelo menos os meus.
photo by Eliot Lee Hazel
This is my first solo record. It was made during an unexpected but very welcome exile, in a land I wouldn't predict I'd moor my boat for long but that, given such difference and a refreshingly nameless arrival, gave me the opportunity to re-cognize my nature, to recoup my ascendance and to disclose a new perspective over myself. It was as a foreigner, separated from others and yet still somehow attached to the furniture I had left behind, bits of myself I hung up around me like dead mirrors I could no longer turn my face to, that came to focus the beauty of the empty room ahead, a hint. I became enamoured by space, by distance, and began to see the double that looks at me from the outside, that reflects the vision I call mine, vehicle and invented accomplice to which I am also a channel, the one I name Cavalo.
I have always felt like a foreigner, imagined myself as an explorer, moving from city to city every three years as a kid, pretending to have the forbearance and courage i ended up forging while secretly carrying the resentment of the imposed detour, of the wait to return. When I finally arrived back in Rio no longer a child and with an accent three times tampered I realized that my home town was mine only because I had invented it, its memory a dream of smells and hope that didn't exist in space, maybe in time. I discovered myself a stranger, what I had been since I first left, what I knew I would forever be. And it was light and warm, I felt free and grateful, strong, and like this I departed again. I ended up finding myself in a desert, happy to be alone, overwhelmed with the void, with silence, the place where I wrote these songs from. I believe that everybody can feel foreign in some way, in the way that they think others see them, in their bodies, their streets, in their fate perhaps. I dream that this vehicle, an unpredictable mirror that i fill, that serves me and that moves me, can also move you, serve yet others, with luck.
To give room to this double that appears as an echo, that shows itself with distance reflected, I opened up space as much as I knew how, subtracted all undue, threw adjectives away and using different languages I was forced to a new conciseness, gathering codes that wouldn't always be understood as a whole and therefore can create other spaces, allow diversions, inventions. I also threw away the cover. Everything that was inside protected by the cover came out, became exposed, clean of directions or colors, unashamed, open. And the simple beauty of the page revealed itself, black and white that we like to use as a synonym of things clear and exact but that is where the infinite delight of interpretation resides, where the biggest gap is, a lacuna. Inside only the music. And there was yet another separation, another double: inside and outside, the thing and the name of the thing, me and the notion I have of myself. Between one and the other the open hand, the train at the station, an opening in the veil, your own dream. With luck!
Saravá!
R. Amarante