Biography
Cabruêra is a typical expression from the Northeast of Brazil that comes from the word cabras, which can mean goats or a bunch of people. In this case, it means the gathering of the most amazing musical group formed in Brazil in recent years. The blending of contemporary sounds with some of the most typical musical forms from the Northeast, like the Martelos, the Galopes and the Cirandas, is quite unique and part of their programme. Playing with their Brazilian roots, Cabruêra create rich harmonic and melodic lines through electrifying Cocos, invading Cirandas or sampling Repentes.
The band Cabruêra started in Campina Grande, Paraíba (Brazil), in 1998. Vivid members of the musical movement of the Northeast of Brazil from the start, they performed in events like the Saint John’s celebration in Campina Grande, the largest popular celebration of the region, and in the Abril Pro Rock in Recife, Pernambuco. They all come from a rock background and the regional styles were not their first musical options. But in their musical encounter the current and the primitive now come together forming a real new sound alchemy: a mix of Forró with Pink Floyd, Coco with Hermeto Pascoal, Ciranda with Funk, Maracatú with Frank Zappa, Embolada with Rock, a cocktail of rhythms and musical traditions without loosing the roots. And they rock it with a ballpoint guitar, the amazing invention of Cabruêra’s founder Arthur Pessoa. The man picked up a cheap ballpoint pen and began to rub the strings of his acoustic guitar with it, creating a sound that is a mix of a cello and a berimbau, a typical percussion instrument from the state of Bahia.
All the musicians are multi-talented and play several different instruments, shifting from an acoustic guitar to a bass drum, from a lead vocal to a zabumba, the typical drum from the pulsating north eastern rhythms. And Arthur Pessoa who decided to switch his Cultural Anthropologies studies to adventure into modern music with Cabruêra is not the only one inventive and creative. Fredi Guimarães plays a beautiful acoustic guitar, but also is seen in the percussion front and in the drum kit playing all kinds of things. He’s a studied guitar player and takes part in Folk and Chorinho groups. Zé Guilherme is the lead vocalist in some songs and in others he is pumping the zabumba like nobody else. A convinced Buddhist, art lecturer and street children worker, he’s also been a percussionist in the Orquestra Sinfônica da Paraíba since 14 years. Fabiano Soares keeps the pulse of the band in his five string bass guitar and sometimes is leading a vocal or playing the agogo in the rhythm section. A music professional since 1991, he has played with Orquestra Casa Blanca in Rio de Janeiro, the Cowboys, Banda do Zé Godá, Meio da Mata, Geridum and many others. Last but not least, Tom Rocha, drummer of the band, can also be heard singing on several tunes. He was percussionist in the band Maracatu Nação Pernambuco presented at the New Orleans Jazz Fest 2000 and played in the Banda Cidade Central in Recife.
Cabruêra has already performed in Great Britain, Germany, Portugal and Belgium; they took part in the PIRANHA recording of the “Sons Da Terra” album recorded live in Germany during the Heimatklänge Festival 2000. In 2001 their first CD “Cabruêra” was released, in 2003 they were representing Brazil in the MIDEM Festival in Cannes and touring Holland, France and Germany again. It was in this same year that they recorded their second album, “O Samba da Minha Terra”, which has now been released internationally through PIRANHA Musik with a new sequencing, mixing and under the new title “Proíbido Cochilar – Sambas for sleepless Nights”.
Cabruêra