BOSTON’S WEEKLY
[music]
Forro in the Dark
Bonfires of São João
By Michael Brodeur
Issue 8.43
Wed, October 25, 2006

There’s some bad science when It comes to bands from New York. PR theory will tell you that the more a band absorbs the city, the more authentic they’ll sound. In reality, absorbing most anything from the city, let alone its commercial influences, ends up being kind of gross. The real challenge is one that Forro in the Dark meet masterfully on their debut—simply allowing NYC’s formless energy to pass through their music and into a particular shape like a lens—or, in this case, a prism. Forro in the Dark play baião, a “working man’s dance music” originating in Northeastern Brazil and developing fully at the hands of its daddy, Luiz Gonzaga; and as appealing as that sounds on its own, carried as it is by a cast of incredibly capable players, it’s the way that the music welcomes any number of variations that makes this record shine. Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto chimes in on a maddeningly catchy Japanese version of “Paraiba,” while David Byrne gives some tipsy bohemian tatter to “Asa Branca” and “I Wish.” Elsewhere, Bebel Gilberto (who, somehow, doesn’t sing like a gym teacher here) leads a delicate yet profoundly moving take on Peggy Lee’s “Wandering Swallow.” A perfectly pieced, intensely mellow throwdown of tiny proportions—exactly what you’d like to hear coming from the city.