Remanescentes: historic unreleased Brazilian reggae album is rescued and released on digital platforms!

After 30 years of its recording, the unprecedented album "Só Remanescente Ficará", by the historic band Os Remanescentes, which brought together great names such as Sine Calmon, Nengo Vieira, Tintim Gomes, Marco Oliveira and Valéria Vieira, has just been released on all digital platforms. The band established itself in Cachoeira (Recôncavo Baiano) in the late 80s and is considered one of the first reggae formations in Brazil. The group, in addition to being the vanguard of style in the country, is a potential and expressive symbol of identity for black youth and peripheral militancy in the Recôncavo region and in the capital of Bahia. Influenced by counterculture, by the ideals of community life of Tropicália and Novos Baianos, and by the dizzying growth of Protestantist culture among black people and the peripheries of Brazil, the work of Remanescentes is organized within a counter-liturgical narrative. In it, the periphery is sung using its own languages, its own codes. Social reflections, native sound experimentation and the composition style full of metaphors and messages of spirituality and love are present, which took the cadence from the Jamaican rhythm in Bahia. In 1993 the band disbanded and the composers pursued their individual careers, in new formations. In July 2021, the "Reggae Recôncavo" style was listed as Intangible Heritage of the city of Cachoeira.

ONLY REMAINING WILL REMAIN

The eleven tracks recorded between 1990 and 91 represent one of the first sounds of local reggae heard in Brazil. The album that remained open for 30 years, then called “Sementes do Amor”, is a symbolic landmark of popular music in Bahia, radically committing itself to those left on the margins, representing the “people, the new itself”. The recording brought together Nengo Vieira (guitar and vocals), Sine Calmon (guitar and vocals), Marco Oliveira (double bass and vocals), Tintim Gomes (vocals), Valéria Vieira (vocals), Beto Souza (percussion), Wilson Tororó (percussion), Quinho Batera (drums), Júlio Santa (drums), Augusto Conceição (trombone), Ito Bispo (saxophone) and João Theory (trumpet). Singers Angela Lopo (back vocals), Tita Alves (back vocals) and musician André Santana (keyboard), hired by WR at the time, also participated. After 30 years of open project and with the deterioration of the original files, it was not possible to find the tracks of the album, the audios “excavated” and extracted from mp3 files, needed to be slowed down by searching for the original tones of the songs, the tracks were treated to remove noise and remastered using high quality compressors. The phonograms restored and remastered by music producers DJ Raíz, DJ Leandro Vitrola and Augusto Júnior, combined solutions such as DJing techniques, equalizers and compressors, to reconstruct and qualify the damaged files. The remastering of the album was carried out in two stages, in Salvador, at Freedom Soul Rec and WR Studios, and in Santo Antônio de Jesus, at Universo Verde Studio. The project and restoration management is carried out by Rute Mascarenhas, daughter of bassist Remanescente. The sound, which has an original mix by Wesley Rangel, Nestor Madrid, Nengo Vieira and Marco Oliveira, went through the restoration process for release by Selo Surforeggae on September 24, 2021.

LISTEN TO A PREVIEW OF THE ALBUM

To listen to the full album, click here and choose your favorite digital platform.