ZapTown

The craftsmanship behind the compositions and the quality of playing for each instrument really prevents anyone from being able to accuse this group of reaching too far. The banjo, fiddle, and blues guitar parts in their cover of Hank William’s “I’m So Lonesome, I Could Cry” meld seamlessly with the gorgeous percussion. “Nago Nago” features a bass line and break-beat deep enough to be the highlight of a old school b-boy’s day.

In addition to all this wonderful instrumentation, you have the multi-lingual presence of their lead vocalist. Liliana Araujo’s strong vocals and comfort in various styles clearly demonstrates why she was a finalist in Brazil’s equivalent of American Idol.

I could come up with brainy adjectives all day to describe their sound but in the end; they make really fun music that has appeal for anyone that likes to enjoy themselves.

We’ve performed in Brazil a few times and the Brazilians love it!  We collaborated with a traditional maracatu group “Nação Estrela Brilhante” on our first CD “Maracatuniversal” which we recorded in Recife, Brazil.  They were so excited to see how we had interpreted their music.  We were also mentored by one of the greatest Brazilian fiddle players Mestre Salustiano, who took us under his wing and inspired us to continue on our path of mixing Brazilian and American music.  We just performed in Lafayette, LA at the International Music Festival and folks down there loved it too.  In fact, David Greeley, fiddle player for the Mamou Playboys, grammy award winning Cajun Band from Lafayette,  just recorded a track with us for our upcoming release.  I think our music comes from an honest place and people can feel that when they hear us perform.  We don’t have a genre our boundaries in our music and therefore people from many different traditions can often relate to our sound.

We don’t necessarily have a formula for making our arrangements or compositions.  Usually it’s the song that dictates us where it should go.  I think the only thing we are trying to do is not interrupt the flow of the rhythm so people can keep dancing.

It’s actually much more exciting!  New Yorker’s are jaded in a way…nothing is really new or exciting here because there is so much multi-culti things happening.  So when we get to the midwest it’s a pleasure to share our small piece of NYC-Brooklyn-Brazil with folks who don’t get to hear things like this every day.  It’s always nice to see the surprise on peoples faces when they hear something for the first time.

I’m flattered you think of our music as “stylistically complex”.  I think to us it’s what comes naturally.  Our lead singer Liliana Araujo is from the northeast of Brazil and her and I do most of the composing and repertoire selection.  It’s a collaboration where Liliana and I are always stimulating each other with new ideas and new music.  Sometimes I’ll write a melody and play it for her and she’ll put lyrics in Portuguese.  Then we’ll bring it to the band and start working on an arrangement together.  With Nation Beat, the arrangement usually starts from the bottom up – The RHYTHM!  We’ll take a new song and play it in a specific rhythm for a while until we feel it either works or doesn’t.  But usually each song has it’s own unique process of being born into our repertoire.  Sometimes it will start with a simple call & response lyric that Liliana comes up with or a chord progression that I write.