Mallu Magalhaes - Highly Sensitive
Indie, Folk, Singer-Songwriter | MP3 CBR 320 kbps | 44:05 min | 109 MB + 5% Recovery
Label: Agencia de Musica | Tracks: 15 | Rls.date: 2013-10-01
Indie, Folk, Singer-Songwriter | MP3 CBR 320 kbps | 44:05 min | 109 MB + 5% Recovery
Label: Agencia de Musica | Tracks: 15 | Rls.date: 2013-10-01
There’s no immediate tipoff that Mallu Magalhães is Brazilian on her United States debut album, “Highly Sensitive.” Ms. Magalhães, who is 21, sings the opening songs in American-accented English, casually slurring words and not worrying unduly about exact pitch. Most of her music is 1960’s-loving indie rock that can lean toward folk-pop or make room for a distorted lead guitar, and she has a gift for writing lightheartedly affectionate ditties with a personal skew. “I’m messy but I’m totally yours/My clumsy hands will hold you,” she promises in “Lonely.”
So when Ms. Magalhães switches to Portuguese in the opening verse of “Highly Sensitive” — a tune that lands somewhere between skiffle and the Strokes — an American listener’s first reaction might well be a double take: What’d she say?
“Highly Sensitive” is actually a compilation from the three albums she released in Brazil in 2008, 2009 and 2011, mostly from her 2011 album, “Pitanga.” Even as a teenager, she showed a sensibility of her own: winsome, sly, glancing northward.
Her debut, released when she was 16, was produced by Mario Caldato Jr., a Brazilian-American who has worked with Beck and the Beastie Boys, and it included songs in both English and Portuguese. The producers on her next two albums, Kassin (who emerged from the collective called the Plus 2s) and Marcelo Camelo, kept her music lean and playful. “In the Morning,” from 2011, accompanies her sleepy singsong with little more than plinking piano, an occasional glockenspiel, a few buzzing guitar notes and what sounds like the ratcheting of a windup toy.
Of course, Ms. Magalhães’s knowing nonchalance also eases nicely into bossa nova, low-key samba or retro Brazilian pop when she sings in Portuguese. Although she’s a star in Brazil, she sounds as if she’s singing just to herself, and maybe a friend. It makes her a charmer.
TRACKLIST
01. You Know You've Got (3:41)
02. My Home Is My Man (3:47)
03. Highly Sensitive (2:03)
04. Lonely (3:15)
05. Velha E Louca (2:46)
06. Angelina, Angelina (2:24)
07. Youhuhu (3:18)
08. Cena (2:21)
09. Make It Easy (4:23)
10. Sambinha Bom (2:54)
11. In The Morning (1:56)
12. You Ain't Gonna Lose Me (2:58)
13. Tchubaruba (Bonus Track) (3:17)
14. Soul Mate (Bonus Track) (3:00)
15. Baby, I'm Sure (Bonus Track) (2:04)