Hear 'All The Dreams' of Vocalist Sara Serpa and Guitarist Andre Matos, Sunnyside Records [REVIEW]

The dream-like luminescence and shimmering gossamer wings of guitarist Andre Matos as he flits up, over, around and through the pristine wordless vocals of Sara Serpa on opener "Calma" is but a portend of what is to come on the decidedly otherworldly and totally original All The Dreams (Sunnyside).

Taken from where they left off on their promising 2014 Primavera debut, this eclectic eccentric duo has now added synthesizer guru Pete Rende and percussionist Billy Mintz for even more mysterious layers. It's like nothing else out there.

Sure some of the songs that actually do contain lyrics come from the unlikely pens of such historical figures as Great Britain's William Blake [1757-1827], Brazil's Clarice Lispector [1920-1977] and Portugal's Luis Amaro, as well as their own, but the sound, scope and fog are all theirs. The songs are more like sketches, brief interludes of ambient textures akin to what composer Brian Eno popularized in the 1970s.

Welcome to where the electronica enhances the organic. The studio itself is their instrument. Whether Serpa sings in her native Portuguese, her adapted English or no language at all, the spiraling essence of their finished artwork results in a cloud of profundities...and it all ends with the 14^th track, "amlaC," a reversal of the spelling of the "Calma" opener, complete with backwards vocals.

"I am nothing, I shall never be anything/I cannot even wish to be anything/Despite all that, I have within me all the dreams of the world."-Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa

"I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers/And I become the other dreamers."-American poet Walt Whitman

So from Whitman and Pessoa, this husband-wife team took their title. They're from Lisbon, Portugal, with its citywide "14,000 streets, alleys and staircases," according to Serpa in the liner notes. "Lisboa," their hometown tribute, seemingly has 14,000 crevices, dead-ends and rabbit holes in which one can drop down in an Alice In Wonderland-styled surreal dream. Such are the pleasures of All The Dreams.

TagsSara Serpa, Andre Matos, Sunnyside Records, REVIEW