Amazon.com's Best of 2000
Virginia Rodrigues's sophomore album,
Nos, is the sort of session that sends chills up the spine--and a warm gust straight to the soul. Her version of Bahian music employs the Brazilian region's percussive traditions in almost subterranean ways so that her voice can soar across the top of the rhythms. There's a mysticism and spiritual core to
Nos that's of course connected deeply to Bahian traditions but has global relevance.
--Andrew Bartlett
Amazon.com
The Bahian region of Brazil has sent the world some invaluable music, much of it expressed to the widest audience through artists who aren't native to the region. So the drummers of Olodum propel Paul Simon's
Rhythm of the Saints and deeply inspire
Caetano Veloso and untold other Brazilian artists. Virginia Rodrigues, though, is the quintessence of the region's aesthetic pricelessness. Her
Sol Negro won global accolades, and its follow-up,
Nós, is an even more precious gem. Rodrigues melds Bahian rhythmic aesthetics and a pop feel that ranges from evening-gown jazz hybrids (with choral background vocals!) to sheer displays of her broad-winged midrange vocalizations. Produced by Veloso,
Nós opens with a song for the African deity Exú and invokes periodic ritual energies, swirling languidly through Rodrigues's vocals and finding refractions in the layers of pristine production beneath each song's surface. It's a rare find, something this special.
--Andrew Bartlett
