Couple Coffee are Brazilians, like coffee and love to wake up late. The albums of this Portuguese band are surprising musical deconstructions, unholy crossbreed songs, patchwork of various homelands sung by the warm voice of Luanda Cozetti and instrumented by the talented Norton Daiello.
You edited three music albums that interpreted compositions of other authors and only the fourth album decided to present original. Why you waited this long to do so?
Luanda Cozetti: Look, because I have a vein of very serious artist, I really like to be a singer, I never had this thing to offer my own songs, I take the themes of other's and then make them mine. As we had three albums and had a substantial work to make versions of the originals, which we transform, give a new wave, most composers, the best known, Godinho, Palma and others started poking me, Norton as intrumentalist had melodies, but I did not, then, the original idea was to present a record of original songs where I sang and I said hey, why not? So we started a new production within the production and we already have a new album, so we will release two albums, the first to came out was a quartet that is the reading of another songwriter and then prepared "baixa voz" as the first, only my lyrics and melodies from Norton, although I had begun to compose with others, it was interesting and funny this work.
What inspired you in songwriting?
LC: I confess that I am not the kind of people that writes in the first person, so much so that one of the songs we play the most, "fourth seed," I am a male character, it may be a way for me to build a composition language. The day-to-day people inspire me, I'm colloquial in lyrics, for all that passed, for life itself. Júlio Pereira, on the album "Graffiti", asked a song that Tiago had written just for me, all this is creating a new way to interpret. We are Brazilian musicians, are a Portuguese band and in addition to the various influences of jazz, rock and more, we are already impregnated in a way to see the music through a much more mixed construction than if I lived in Brazil and began composing. I think it was the right time, I came to music elsewhere and used my Brazilian view, guinense and Portuguese from that mixed that everyone knows, but already with a very well established interpreter language, so it makes a little difference. I wrote slowly, the past few years were devoted to it, went back to play guitar, that is why I have no more decent nails (laughs), just! Sometimes, there is a plan in life and we will realize it, I thought the time to be a composer was now. It is another repertoire, but with more anxiety. As a performer or musician we know what this giving is, cames from the appreciation of others, when you are a composer changes everything, and it is very subjective, you do not know what the other will realize about your music. As a singer, I ask various songs, but not all enter the record. When you send a song for singer to record it happens the same, does my song will come out or not? And in my profession I discovered another, it does renew the dialectic of things.
Recorded three album with established composers by Brazilian and Portuguese musicians, one of Zeca Afonso, someone who you had a family relationship, by your Portuguese origins, by your father.
LC: More Portuguese is impossible with a revolutionary father (laughs). With Zeca musics I had a contact at a very young age even from the time the album "Co 'the Zeca tamanquinhas" came into my life, where there is a song about my father, Elípio de Freitas, I think it was right. I was a girl of the 70's, much dissected by those south American sonorities and this record of Zeca, most notably has a very Latin sound and it suddenly came in through my ear very easy, if it were another drive, perhaps, had not had this facility. And from there I created this relationship, my favorite song on the album was "the man with the harmonica," because I thought it was music for children, the record was colored pink and in the datasheets of Zeca I was seeing other people and that was clearing a path for other composers who came into my life, like Fausto, Sérgio Godinho, Janita Salomé, Julio Pereira, in short, so much so that with Júlio is on all albuns. I say it was Zeca Afonso that opened a whole world of contemporary Portuguese music, because when my parents were in prison I was raised by my immigrant transmontana family who heard these songs and others like Roberto Leal that amused the Portuguese community, because it was he who came, there was nothing. Then there were the ranchos, the tamanquinhas, the hoop and colorful skirts and Amalia, of course. I talk a lot of my great-uncle, a typical Portuguese of the 50's, conservative, foreman, who believed that woman were only good for cooking and procreate and were down the social scale, with Amalia was different, he said to me, let listen the goddess. So, when I went to Guinea Bissau with all Portuguese music that comes into my ear and more all contemporary music that begins to do in Portugal, the "Radio Macau", "doce" who I'm fan of, I know all choreographies and everything is a relationship and this will open the new techniques. I read all datasheets, because they open up a universe for you again, the CD lost a lot, because it's all so small (laughs). I think we should keep the "long plays" to go after the datasheets, discover who plays what.
Also have a record of bossa nova, which is also a major influence in your life.
LC: The bossa nova album was an order, then we worked with Guru, a musical company, and had been the 50 years of this musical style, had aged poor thing. So we do not even remembered to do this album because I'm half-off dates. But, as we had arrived from Brazil, no way we wanted to do a bossa nova album! (Laughs). After they said we could do what we wanted, to Norton and me bossa nova, to the new generation of Brazilian musicians, is a form of instant communication, all the world can touch the work each others, I could replace a singer, because the repertoire is of all, it was inevitable that we did not want to make a record, but on the other hand, it was also inevitable to do so. We decided to record a live concert, were 40 days, a marathon and it was fun, because it is one thing to hear, or listen to singing and make a contribution, another thing is you looking into the songs and adapt it to your language. It's a nice way to make a record and may have helped to make then the work with orignals. Zeca on the album we wanted to have this tropical language and that in Brazil nobody needed a glossary to understand what was going on and once again spoke the same language, it was an intention of ours and was fun, because everyone has their elations about Zeca Afonso, I live in a very friendly neighborhood in Lisbon and noted that when we spoke of him, his songs had greatly changed the lives of people, the language that he created, it had an impact. So we build the drive with all his universe, more ideal, it began with a "story" even the "have a convex cousin", we took the "seed train", we go to the end with tamanquinhas and besides there is an Afonso, the nice guy who went to live in Rio de Janeiro. Now there is a new edition and again the drive, although we didn't remember it was the 40th anniversary of the revolution, the album was very cherished by critics and in it I sing my father's song with Julio Pereira, the "bring again" was a song that had also purposely left out and that appears in the new edition, is a topic that conmove me very much, because it speaks of those who fell by the wayside, "no longer had the strength to continue, we have to continue the way also for those who were." I will not say that it is a debt, but it is a gesture of caring for those who fought and so we called Dad, who in 40 minutes recorded the song was very professional with two voice channels, I found it very sweet and even showed it to Susana Félix who was born long after all this, she even says "was born with the passport stamped for freedom and in a poorer world" and when she heard it told me that my father had done the song as a prayer and it is. It is a prayer of reconnection, of reattachment.
You speak of Zeca with such affection.
LC: Well, I think it's my favorite person, maybe that's why, because Zeca ... how to say this without disparaging anyone? Zeca Afonso goes beyond songs and compositions and for been the extraordinary singer he was. I am a singer that I carry with me the technique, I know everything that he put there, nothing was for free, was not intuitive, it was all very studied and placed and it seemed all so loving, even the song of my father I had a trouble sing it, because the most joyful part is very heavy, speaks of thousands who died in Brazil tortured and everybody applauds and I did not understand, took eight years to understand how it is. Zeca is much smarter, he knew with joy people will most gladly sing the chorus, come home and think. Joy does reflect more than sorrow, not must be deny, because things are heavy in the world, you should find joy even in small things and it makes a lot more for us and look , I know the size of sorrow, but so it is no a championship, suffering is no tournament, people had to take more account of this. Zeca was a man of great courage untill the early end of his life, he left too early and we missing him.
