P026 – PUTO TITO – Carregando A Vida Atrás Das Costas

Vinyl 2xLP / Digital
Written and produced by Puto Tito;
Mastered by Tó Pinheiro da Silva, Artwork by Márcio Matos;
Released May, 2019;

VINYL/DIGITAL: Order from us

A1 – Noite Mágica
A2 – Mestre Das Artes
A3 – Agora Sem Brincadeiras
A4 – Batata Frita
B1 – Carregando A Vida Atrás Das Costas
B2 – Malucao
B3 – Locura Tutal Vol 1
C1 – Rap
C2 – Emsima Do Altar
C3 – [Puto Tito]
C4 – OIHo JOonÇe
D1 – 123
D2 – C,L ProD

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Melodia Daquelas (digital bonus)
ABuzaNtesS (digital bonus)
Tristesa (digital bonus)
AnOo Novo (digital bonus)
Overdose (digital bonus)
Big boSS (digital bonus)
MusicC (digital bonus)

PRESS RELEASE

Double EP of material salvaged from an old Soundcloud account, mastered “for public presentation”. Let’s get to the point:
Currently 19, Tito (not his real name though) recorded these avant garde club tracks back in 2014/15, barely into his teens. Reaction from his peers was typically a laugh, the music was deemed no good for dancefloor use, thus worthless. He payed little attention. His first production crew Casa Louca is well represented in most tracks via the customary anti-theft ID stamp.

Come 2019 and the still very young producer seems remarkably detached from this period, having lost all the original files stored in a machine that went bust. These were house favourites we’ve been dreaming about for a long time. From the deadpan tarraxo that is “123”, stretching an emotional keyboard groove up to 7:10, to an equally mesmerizing 6:24 of chopped guitar and broken beat punctuated by expressive claps (“[Puto Tito]”), all the way through the beatless psych mode of “Melodia Daquelas”, every bit of music in this album is testament to the fierce, uncompromising vision of a bedroom producer learning his way with minimal resources and simultaneously laying down some of the most distinct music we’ve heard in years.

Coming from Angola to the greater Lisbon area before he could even speak, Tito kept his childhood nick and took inspiration mainly from his older cousin Willicox. His high motivation led to several collaborations and short-lived crews, he was even there during the first stages of RS Produções (check their more recent “Bagdad Style” EP). Still standing, a veteran at 19, Tito is very much linked to what’s going on and who’s going on, from his South Bank home in Segundo Torrão, one of a number of freeform, precarious “housing estates” resulting from the massive affluence of immigrants to Lisbon since the mid-1970s. Life is for the living.

Vinyl 2xLP; individually hand-painted, hand-stamped copies available for the world.

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There’s no cringe-worthy teen angst among the 13 tracks on Carregando a Vida Atrás das Costas, just head bopping, body shaking left-field dance killers that we’ve all come to expect from anything in the Príncipe catalogue — all from a dude that’s only 19.
Tiny Mix Tapes, April 2019

Hot out of Lisbon’s ghetto sprawl, 19 year old Puto Tito breaks thru on Príncipe with 20 tracks produced when he was barely into his teens, all salvaged from an old Soundcloud account and newly remastered for the dance. The sound of ‘Carregando a Vida Atrás das Costas’ is patently influenced by Tito’s Angolan heritage, and faithfully employs the popular slow Tarraxho and tougher Kuduro rhythm styles. Yet, like the best of Príncipe’s releases, it’s the way he injects a playful, weirdo character and uncompromising, psychedelic vision to his trax that sets Tito’s music apart from the crowd, whilst being very much connected to it.

With a direct fervour and naturally experimental quality to his productions, the album scales from drowsy, red-eyed, to brightly coloured downbeats on one hand, while charging into jagged and nagging uptempo styles on the other hand. But whichever way he goes, it’s always with an off-the-cuff flair and rhythm-lead suss that works the dance to its best.

The 2LP highlights the full spectrum of Puto Tito’s early remit, diving in with the darkside drone and rasping rhythm of ‘Noite Magica’, to swerve from the celebratory, drop-top cruise of ‘Mestre Das Artes’ thru to wickedly screwed Tarraxho in ‘Malucao’ and the deadpan drag of ‘1 2 3’, while he can hardly suppress his brilliant, weirdo tendencies in the zig-zagging arps of ‘C L Prod’, the heat-warped funk of ‘OIHo JoOnAe’, and the heatsick, syrupy pressure of ‘Locura Tutal’. Further, the digital bonuses extend the wigged-out fun in seven short, sharp shots, slipping farther down the rabbit hole into a bittersweet beatless flex on ‘Melodia daquelas’ alongside the hypnotic uptempo styles of ‘ABuzaNtesS’.

Tito’s arguably and understandably naif approach speaks to an ideal of dance music as punkish, fresh and direct, rather than overworked and generic. It’s an approach that, in the past, has yielded some of the finest underground music, from the UK’s early ‘90s hardcore and jungle, to South Africa’s Gqom scene, Chicagoan footwork and the Singeli sound of Dar-Es-Salaam. More specifically, its possible to place Puto Tito in the same dare-to-be-different, bedroom producer category of grimy Kuduro, Batida and Afrohouse as young heroes Nídia or P.Adrix, as ‘Carregando a Vida Atrás das Costas’ vividly demonstrates. Don’t miss this.
Boomkat, May 2019

Difícil enfatizar todos os pontos-chave nesta colecção de recuerdos dos anos 2014-2015. Estas experiência formativas de Tito (agora responde como PT Musik) revelam uma potência criativa logo colocada em exposição para todos ouvirem, em vez de salvaguardada para melhores dias. Estas faixas navegavam em relativa solidão pelo Soundcloud, escondidas na multidão de música, em primeiro lugar, e na outra multidão de música afro-descendente produzida em Portugal, em segundo lugar. Imediatamente distinta das correntes principais, a música em “Carregando A Vida Atrás Das Costas” utiliza todos os recursos estilísticos testados e comprovados mas o que sai é algo de outra dimensão – o tarraxo-título (5:39) e outro, chamado “123” (7:10) esticam o formato para uma duração invulgar enquanto, pela repetição, criam toda uma outra sensibilidade que o estilo habitualmente não emana. A equipa Casa Louca (basicamente Tito) assina boa parte do material, entre a melancolia extrema (o título, claro) e a vida comum, as observações do dia-a-dia. Sons cortados que resultam em groove magistral, minimalismo “fora-da-caixa”, tomada de posição muito assertiva aos 14-15 anos de idade. Mestre das Artes.
Flur, May 2019

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