Twofer Tuesday #16
The magic of Brazilian artist Priscilla Ermel and the world musical memory amid the global pandemic
Welcome to Twofer Tuesdays, a special for subscribers wherein I discuss two albums in conjunction. (Or back-to-back, in classic rock radio DJ parlance). Sometimes random, sometimes aligned, sometimes old, sometimes new, sometimes a deep dive, but maybe also super-shallow, sometimes in dialogue with each other, sometimes just because their covers kinda look alike, or whatever criteria I deem appropriate/ inappropriate.
Longevity lends itself to a certain sort of senility. Write thousands of music reviews and the art of forgetting becomes something of a survival tactic. Listen, tune in, then tune out, and keep it moving. And from that vantage you can observe how what you write about and what you listen to diverge in the woods, the twains rarely if ever crossing again. Is what you love to listen to the same as what you write about? I scroll through old bylines and am sometimes astonished by something I wrote. Not the words themselves, but that I had actually listened to a certain album, as I otherwise have no trace of it left in my memory. Memory separate from music…
Discovering the music of Priscilla Ermel on the 2017 Outro Tempo comp was a revelation and I explicitly recall writing that Pitchfork review. A set of exquisite ‘80s Brazilian music released by a meticulous Dutch reissue imprint, Music from Memory. But a little shiver went through me: Had I not written about Brazilian sound artist/ singer Priscilla Ermel on her own? I loved her music on those sets so much. Did I not share my enthusiasm for her singular music with the world?
