Remota Batucada my debut album re-launched by Universal
When I launched Remota Batucada in the 80s, there were all sorts of repercussions by the press, intelligentsia and public. I did not know that I was laying the foundations of my future ethnographic work in music and in society.
Most recently there has been an interest in this album by anthropologists, social psychologists, writers and DJs. A recent analysis by Universidade Federal so Rio Grande do Sul Professors Giumbelli and Machado PhD is summarised below:
A close look at May’s work shows us that her anthropophagy was voracious, adding several Mediterranean, non-western and non-urban aesthetic elements to the tropical. European experiences- where the artists was based since the 90’s…. were also added (to her music). However, it is in Brazil that May builds her most beautiful house, with elements from the forest, indigenous cultures, Afro-Brazilian matrixes- national contracts, moulded with the mortar of European pop, but also with her experimentalism…
Through the eyes of researchers and writers I can now see there is a golden thread that connects my world music of the 80s to my world work from the 90s onwards. Both strands were based in deep listening.
I listen to nature and reinvigorate. I listen to the guardians of the memory of the creation of diverse territories and feel humbled- the sense of right proportion. I listen to women in their totality and remember the Pleiades. I am thrilled to listen to place-based culture that noursishes my indigenous self. I also listen to the megatrends informing the world and become one with unfolding change.
I am thrilled Universal decided to re-launch my debut album Remota Batucada which is waking up remote memories of transcultural futures to come.