NINA MAIKA by EDSON NATALE

(RH Record of the week review at the bottom of this text)

Reissue of Edson Natale’s genre-challenging masterpiece from 1990. The album combines traditional acoustic Brazilian music with ambient electronics, all the while maintaining a strong pop sensibility. The album features Mitar Subotić (Rex Ilusivii) alongside some of Brazil's finest players and vocalists. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl in a gatefold cover with the original lyrics and liner notes.

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Rush Hour Store Record of the week W50:

Originally self-released in 1990 and lovingly redone by our sister label New Dawn, Edson Natale’s ‘Nina Maika’ is one of the most beautiful reissues to come out this year - if we may say so ourselves.

After touring and playing with his jazz group Dharana for years during the late eighties the self-taught guitarist decided to do things differently on the first album under his own name, inspired by the spirit of Milton Nascimento and Lo Borges’ groundbreaking Clube Da Esquina, now having arrived in a decidedly post-MPB era.

Enlisting the help of Serbian expat and electronic music pioneer Mitar ‘Suba’ Subotić (Rex Ilusivii) and some of Brazil’s finest players including former Dharana collaborators Alex Braga, André Geraissati and Toninho Horta the São Paulo native started weaving his dream at the turn of the decade - the singular masterpiece that is ‘Nina Maika’.

Combining traditional acoustic Brazilian styles and atmospheric ambient electronics ‘Nina Maika’ gently floats somewhere between the guitar-based folk and bossa traditions that blossomed in the sixties and seventies and new era esoteric music with Fourth World- and minimalist undertones, all the while maintaining a strong yet subtle pop sensibility. It’s a sound that turned out to be a match made in electro-acoustic heaven - if heaven could ever be like this. (Rogier) ⁣