Seu Jorge will release The Other Side, his most ambitious album to date and sixteen years in the making, on 8th May via Amor in Sound, Black Service and Phonomotor Records.
Jorge has called the record “the best work I’ve ever done,” a striking claim from an artist whose career has encompassed Cidade de Deus, Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic, Coachella and Primavera Sound. The album was recorded in stages between 2009 and 2018, with Jorge holding it back until he was certain it was ready. “Above all, this album represents patience,” he has said. “A great deal of patience not to give in to the urge to release it too soon, but to wait until it was truly ready.”
Produced by Mario Caldato Jr., who also produced Jorge’s debut album Samba Esporte Fino in 2001, the record marks a deliberate tonal departure: away from the samba, funk and MPB that built his reputation and towards jazz, bossa nova and orchestral music, with touchstones including Milton Nascimento, Arthur Verocai and the ECM Records catalogue. Arrangements were handled by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, whose orchestral work gives the eleven tracks a cinematic quality Jorge has said was present from the first recording session.
The collaborators are exceptional. Marisa Monte appears on ‘Quando Chego’, and Jorge has said her presence was not merely symbolic but structural: “In many moments, I thought: if it were Marisa, what would she do here? That helped me simplify ideas, to seek more essence.” Maria Rita features on ‘Vento de Maio’, a track recorded in 2013. Beck joins for a lush reworking of Nick Drake’s ‘River Man’. The album also includes ‘Caboclo’, an Arthur Verocai and Vitor Martins composition from 1972 that had not been recorded by another artist in 53 years.
Jorge has spoken plainly about his ambitions for the record: “I want the Grammy. The American one. I’m going to try to get nominated. Winning is another thing entirely.” Given what he has made, it is not an unreasonable aspiration.
The Other Side is out 8th May.
