Byrne sings “Asa Branca” in CD by Forro in the Dark
Bebel Gilberto features song in album of the group created in New York by the percussionist Mauro Refosco
Band keeps hype season at Nublu bar, that attracts hipsters and the attention of the press for the Brazilian “country music”.
by Adriana Ferreira Silva

If you hear a voice that seems like David Byrne singing the classic “Asa Branca”, by Luiz Gonzaga and Humberto Teixeira, don’t worry. You are not hallucinating. That’s really him.
The version – half in Portuguese, half in English – made for the music by the ex-Talking Heads is one of the pieces that come out of “Bonfires of Sao Joao”, first disc of Forro in the Dark, a band that plays the most Brazilian of the forros… in New York.
Created by the percussionist Mauro Refosco, that has been playing with David Byrne for years, the band started as a joke and ended up becoming “hype”, thanks to the season that they keep in the cool new yorker bar Nublu, where they have been playing for four years now.
It all started in Refosco’s birthday party, who is a forro fan, and invited some friends to come play in the bar. “Forro is a vibrating style, very easy melodicaly and harmonically. It is a kind of music very simple to like and to identify oneself with.”
Soon, he said, the place became frequented by famous people, like the producer Moby.
The fact that forro is new around there helped them to catch the critics attention and to appear in publications such as the weekly magazine “Time Out” and the “New York Times” newspaper.
“Bossa nova and the bossa nova ‘beats’ played by the DJs is what’s known around here. There wasn’t this ‘simple, rural vibe’,” he says.

Brazilian country music
The similarity with North-American genres like country music, blues and zydeco, says Refosco, helps the crowd to identify with the Brazilian rhythm.
“I didn’t want to introduce a musical style, but to approach the other ones that already exist in the U.S. Johny Cash’s country music is very much like forro.”
Collaborated to the approach the fact that one of the integrants of the band is Smokey Hormel, who played in Johny Cash’s last CDs. With Hormel (guitar, bass, cavaquinho), Rob Curto (accordion and percussion) and others, Refosco recorded an album that contains many classics by Luiz Gonzaga, that has just been released with the label Nublu Records – without reckon to be sold in Brazil – and have already summaries in magazines such as “Urb”.
The mix between our forro and theirs results in a elaborated work, that, despite some lyrics in English, doesn’t sound as a production made to impress foreigners – like the majority of the “new bossa” albums.
Besides David Byrne, the CD has the voice of the Brazilian Bebel Gilberto, singing “Wandering Swallow”, a version of “Juazeiro”, another one by Luiz Gonzaga and Humberto Teixeira.
What we want to know is if, around there, they know how to dance nicely. “They dance close together”, assures Refosco.