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Twelve Bass Tunes is Hernâni Faustino's debut solo record.
12 tunes, 12 stories.
I enter sequência completely sure that this solo record will make me be surrender. And madrigal disarms me. Hernâni is an incredible musician who makes us feel the depth of his Bass and the intensity of his breathing.
The record's guiding thread is harmonious, divinely well achieved. O ofício is hard to describe. It is troubled, and leaves the door open to the Tríptico da Virgem de Lamego. This is one of the best tunes on this record.
Letting it flow, letting it breathe. This solo is, perhaps, one of the biggest challenges of Hernâni’s career. Alone, without nets or artifices, naked, transparent.
It is to this image of the musician's nudity, of the nudity of his committal, that the Tríptico da Virgem de Lamego takes me. We return to the bustle in um modo justo and my thoughts drift to Sei Miguel. Producer on this record, wonderful musician, tuned ear and refined taste. I can't imagine anyone better to be with Hernâni on this record as a producer.
I let the ear remain attentive. I let the solo take its course, without trying to understand intentions, without trying to decipher whys, without wanting to know the story. I create my own story. Sometimes sadder and melancholier, sometimes more assertive and determined. It's a story built second by second, string by string. The bow that runs through the strings is where I keep the focus.
In luar I try to keep myself away from looking for what will come next until I reach EIA EIA. Rhythmic and full of groove, I decide to look at the alignment and, perhaps because of the name, I hope for com Vénus: Hernâni closes the record with what is, in my opinion, the top tune. Intense, dark, sublime, and sexy.
A language of its own, an irreproachable guiding thread, a record I yearned for. In the 2021 list, without any doubt. And the label is more and more promising: the Phonogram Unit starts to take more and more interesting steps.
Credits
released July 23, 2021
Hernâni Faustino / double bass
Recorded (16.01.20) and mixed at Namouche Studios, Lisbon, by Joaquim Monte
Mastered by Simon Wadsworth
All music by Hernâni Faustino
Produced by Sei Miguel
Executive production by Phonogram Unit
Photography : Nuno Martins
Design and artwork : Sofia Faustino
Special thanks to my Family and Fala Mariam