One of my worst kept secrets is my love for Diana Pequeno’s Mistérios. It’s no mystery that it hits all the points I love about music: it’s dreamy, it’s complex but easy going, it’s the product of an artist going out on a limb (in a way most wouldn’t expect). Most importantly, the reason Mistérios is such a summer favorite of mine is because it captures that perfect territory of these season’s “dog days”. As much as we (the royal we) love the sun, we do need some time under a cool shade. As for Diana it is perhaps her crowning jewel. Mistérios is that testament to her ability to transform her influences in folk, pop, and world music into a statement that’s inherently hers (even if some of the stanzas were written elsewhere).
To quote Wikipedia: “Diana Pequeno was born in Salvador”, specifically in Nazaré, a small fishing village in the Brazilian state of Bahia, coming of age in its very slowly shifting society influenced by the freer counterculture of the ‘70s. While attending the Universidade Federal da Bahia to study electrical engineering, Diana took a liking to making music, picking up the guitar and taking her first steps towards performing live.
In the beginning Diana would use this creative outlet to explore a largely Brazilian repertoire and in a short time use that base to branch out into world music with roots in America and Eastern and African locales. In the late ‘70s, under the urging of her father, the RCA Victor label picked her out of three suggested singers to sign and offer a record deal.
Under the direction of Osmar Zan and Dércio Marques and at the young age of 19, in Sao Paulo, Diana recorded her first record (a self-titled affair) that launched her as this sort of Joan Baez-like, singer-songwriter, who slotted in perfectly with all those nameless/forgotten MOR soft rockers of the ‘70s. Three albums later, building on a couple of popular songs heard on TV and widely popular in Brazilian festivals, now nearing the upper tier of known MPB artists, Diana took a sabbatical in 1981 to rethink her career.
In 1984, came a misstep. Trying to scope some territory in the pop market and to try something new, Diana released 1984’s O Mistério Das Estrelas, an album largely made with the label’s heart in mind. Full of inspired cover selections recorded in various uninspired ways, one could tangibly feel how out of place her New Wave takes on those hidden gems were. Hearing songs like “Amigo (Ami Oh)”, “Canção de Acordar”, and “Um Girassol da Cor de Seu Cabelo” (yes, that’s her take on the Clube Da Esquina classic) lose some of their lustre due to their vicinity around some slack adult contemporary was a shame.
Diana had proven before this wonderful capability to carve out her own niche in MPB. Blessed with a gorgeous multi-octave voice that had wonderfully jazzy voicings, Diana (I must wager) must have known she couldn’t go on this way. In a short time she’d high tail it out of her record contract and briefly resign herself to do something else. At age 27, Diana would once again resign from her music career and now choose to renew her university study and humanitarian work.
One wonders who convinced whom but in 1989, five years after her leave of absence from the music biz, Diana and her sister Eliana Pequeno attempted to launch their own record label (Acquarius), self-recording, self-producing, and self-pressing what would be Mistérios, Diana Pequenos first album completely released under her own vision.
A truly intimate album, seemingly under the influence of mint-era Joni Mitchell, forgoed all the dated electronics of her previous work and the sirupy, schmaltz hoisted on her by others, for a work that explored her hidden influences within Brazilian jazz, folk, country, and New Age idioms. Gone were the front-loaded albums full of half-hearted interpretations. Mistérios used a shimmery minimalism — typically, Diana mostly backed on guitar by D’Alma’s Rui Saleme and Eliana manning the studio desk — to augment four of Diana’s beguiling originals with like-minded diamonds from the Lusophone folk canon.
It all begins with her reimagining of Joni Mitchell’s “All I Want” or “Tudo Que Eu Quero” into an even more gossamer and spectral version that takes the original and floats it even further among the clouds. Much like the glowing grayscale album cover, so too does Mistérios use very simple appointments to build a multi-layered body of work. Here a judicious use of reverb and even more pronounced vocal phrasing stretch your immediate idea of what’s in store. This is music to daydream with.
Mistérios sounds forward thinking because Diana affords herself the possibility to step back. Back to her original roots in the singer-songwriter sphere. Here those roots transform nearly forgotten country-tinged MPB of Rodrix & Guarabyra’s “Olhos Abertos” and Joyce’s melancholic country soul of “As Ilhas” into Laurel Canyon folk lost on the borders of Pernambuco and Minas Gerais.
It goes without saying that Mistérios true mysteries lie on the trio of songs found bookending both LP sides.
A masterpiece of new Brazilian soul music, “Mistérios” does its best to further blur and stretch the boundaries of this new jazz folk sound Diana was exploring. This original bathes the vagaries of love and longing via luxurious, fleeting, floating multi-harmonies Diana uses to sing us through to that other side. Summer-y in the way sunlit breezes are when they change at the rise of the evening’s moon. “Mistérios” marks a turning point easing us through the rest of the album.
For me Mistérios just streams through the mind. “Tudo No Olhar” is dust-settled folk belonging far out on some road on the track to some home we long longed to get to. The great Papete laces Diana’s reimagining of a Cape Verde traditional song “Ser Feliz É Melhor Que Nada” as a hypnotic fourth world-esque sidebar. Volta Sêca’s equally hypnotic “Mulher Rendeira” gets its own floating reimagining under Diana’s auspices.
As we wade through the rest of the album it’s hard to forget the dreamy atmosphere. “Mil Melodias” finds itself situated perfectly in the vibes of Edson Natale’s equally forward-thinking MPB of Nina Maika. Ditto for the joyful foot-tapping rework of Jorge Alfredo’s seriously slept-on Brazilian reggae cum MPB “Jeito de Viver”.
As we immerse ourselves in the final two tonally vibrating songs “Analfabetos Do Amor” and “Imagens E Sentimentos” it’s important to take in the little touches here and there. The echoey, auto panning, galloping chorus of the former. The gentle swooping pedal steel of the latter, striking you down like a soft wave of gentleness as Diana sings another typically tricky vocal run with the knowing stroke of a master. This is music made to soundtrack those sunsets setting on that last bit of light falling on this side of the arc of those slowly closing long sunny days. As for Diana, once again she would have to take another sabbatical as others failed to meet her there.
Let’s meet her here now.