P013 – NORMAL NADA – Transmutação Cerebral

Vinyl 12″ / Digital
Written and produced by Normal Nada;
Mastered by Tó Pinheiro da Silva, Artwork by Normal Nada + Márcio Matos;
Released December, 2015;

VINYL/DIGITAL: Order from us

A1 – Aurabi
A2 – Nubai (Wo lo lol)
A3 – KAKARAK 1
A4 – KAKARAK 2
B1 – Ritmo Thoth
B2 – Azouse-1
B3 – Tarraxinha Da Calopsita v2

PRESS RELEASE

Elusive underground metakuduro legend from the Lisbon suburban area, Normal Nada, a.k.a. Qraqmaxter CiclOFF, a.k.a. Erre Mente, .. (every past moniker is like a shed skin he kissed goodbye), is a special kind of cosmogonical pirate exploring chemical balanced regimes of wake – sleep and the seductive dimensions between both.

“Ola
Nao tenho nome.
Tenho…Deus.
Filho de Deus nascido no Ceu criado como Humano.

A minha nacionalidade
ee Humana, sou o filho do primeiro ser “Humanos”,
meu Pai ee o teu Pai e Pai de toda a gente que
esta no mundo.

Sabio Rei como Sol Leao.
Recebe a mensagem. Musica da felicidade.
O album foi feito enquanto treinava e
passava pela “fase” da transmutacao cerebral.
Melhor.”

Vinyl 12″, first pressing is individually hand-painted, hand-stamped.

Funny thing is Príncipe Discos description of him as a “metakuduro legend from Lisbon“. This couldn’t be more deliciously correct. His never ending voyage exploring beyond musical limits fits perfectly the use of that “meta” prefix. He shares a common ground with other artists affiliated to the imprint like Nigga Fox, the use of acid dissonances, melodies that brings dance till trance ecstasy the same way it shows urban, terrain and melancholic use of hope. Normal Nada is back and he even says it on first track “Nubai” where you hear a mantric voice “voltei, voltei, voltei“.
Lacroixx, November 2015

Normal Nada aparece na Príncipe como um rocket lançado de uma terra de ninguém. A sua visão tecnóide de África cola com formas de trance e techno muito fora do Continente, e o brilho dos pratos + sons mitra do mundo digital lembram um pouquinho certas coisas editadas pela Irdial nos 90s. A batida, neste disco, parece seguir regras diferentes das que encontramos em discos anteriores da Príncipe. “Nubai (Wo lo lol)” tem a vantagem extra da voz íntima de NN junto ao microfone a mandar dicas e a anunciar “eu tou de moca” (podia ser com “k”, se calhar é). As duas partes de “KAKARAK” juntam-se num bolo de samba mecânico, Neubauten em Chicago, qualquer coisa assim. Doido. Salto para a mitologia com “Ritmo Thoth”, um house seco para puxar a divindade mais para perto. Acontecem ainda várias outras coisas, neste EP, mas, no final, “Tarraxinha Da Calopsita” atira um “ai é?” a todos nós com o ritmo meloso mexido a pio numa espécie de quadro digital de pintar nas mãos de um intuitivo. As figuras são todas hiper-artificiais e coloridas, o resultado sugere, vagamente, anos 80, mas talvez de outro século ou, pelo menos, de outra dimensão.
Flur, December 2015

Already making an appearance on the third installment of Warp’s Cargaa series, here we see the Lisbonite let off seven wild cuts in the most untamed outing of the label yet. Opening with the plodding Latin groove and shimmering dub chords of ‘Aurabi’, Nada ups tempo to the 150bpm club-banging merriment of ‘Nubai (Wo Lo Lol)’ before descending into the brutal, two-pronged industrial gyrations of ‘KAKARAK’. The flipside hosts more jumped up latin / techno amalgamation, first with the minimalistic ‘Ritmo Thoth’, followed by the dreamscape melodica of ‘Azouse-1’ finally rounding off with the chirpy, ambient lullaby ‘Tarraxinha Da Calopsita v2’.
Bleep, December 2015

Yet another blinder from Príncipe and Lisbon’s enviably talented pool of producers: the solo debut of whacked out and infectious metakuduro from Normal Nada. From what we’ve encountered so far, this is Príncipe’s maddest release, effortlessly covering everything from nagging futurist folk dance in Aurabi to a string of giddily joyful, tumultuous 150bpm bangers, plus the techno/funky-compatible aerodynamics of Azouse-1 and what sounds like Richard D. James-era AFX doing Afro-latin style in Tarraxinha Da Calopsita v2. Recommended!
Boomkat, December 2015

Naturally, a lot can be said of Príncipe Discos and identity. By their own account, Príncipe is a record label “fully dedicated to releasing 100% real contemporary dance music coming out of [Lisbon], its suburbs, projects & slums. New sounds, forms and structures with their own set of poetics and cultural identity.” Howbeit, among the resounding collective resonance of Príncipe as a whole, Normal Nada suitably embodies a mode of thought characterized by the rise of a meta-cognitive representation of the self as a network of identities.
While according to Príncipe, Normal Nada’s music explores the “chemical balanced regimes of wake – sleep and the seductive dimensions between both,” the aptly titled Transmutação Cerebral (Cerebral Transmutation) can also be read according to the changing of the intellect’s condition and the emergence of the self as a system of interrelated elements — in the case of Normal Nada, a “meta-kuduro” legend.
Indeed, Normal Nada’s universal identity draws in afro-trance, zouk, tarraxinha, ragga, kuduro, dancehall, kizomba, and Baltimore club, to name just a few. “KAKARAK 1” and “KAKARAK 2” sound as if placing an ear to the actual inner workings, as opposed to the sonic output, with an underlying hum, mechanical noise, and intermittent cuts in its current. The emphatic “Ritmo Thoth” is compact, but equally spacious and reverberant, with a pitched-up vocal chant — again, Nada’s tools are audible and infectious. Closing track “Tarraxinha da Calopsita” is the ballad of the EP, a simple, light, sentimental track, with the romantic character of tarraxinha.
While hailing from the Lisbon suburban area, Normal Nada’s mode of thought also corresponds to a decentralization or deterritorialization of the self. The EP’s Bandcamp page gives further, mystic indication: a text in Portuguese about not having a name, being of human nationality, and that the album was made in passage of the phase of brain transmutation. Príncipe describe Normal Nada as “a special kind of cosmogonical pirate” — for me, it’s more in the geological sense of a “pirate stream,” diverting into its own flow the multiform headwaters of alternative currents.
Tiny Mixtapes, January 2016

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