Gurcius and His Week of Wonders is an experimental project coming from the minds of the two brazilian filmmakers, visual artists and avant-garde composers Gurcius Gewdner and L. Borgia Rossetti.
The project was born long ago when L. Borgia Rossetti started working on soundtracks for Gurcius Gewdner's movies. For this specific album, Gurcius sent a few extended, beautifully annoying and sometimes almost abstract tributes or audio love letters to well-renowned friends and favorite artists. His words recorded a capella in his traditional, mesmerizing automatic singing style which is characterized by free improvisation and keep adding whatever comes to mind into a pre-stabilished pattern/theme, were later edited by L. Borgia Rossetti into original music pieces. Rossetti basically recorded every sound and instrument, featuring the brilliant guest appearence of his band Esmectatons in three of the tracks. Gurcius and His Week of Wonders, as a whole, sounds a sort of ecletic over-deranged pop, from hyperactively arranged funk to electronic synth madness, from The Fall-esque repetitive rock of "Lá Vem o Corman" to the earlier single "Água de Bebêr" - Gurcius' (genial) controversial lyrical re-interpretation of a bossa classic turned into kind of a weird, odd dancing house/techno, that unexpectedly ended causing a brief repercussion during a radio broadcast in UK!
During the 7 days pre-order period, UGR will make one track available per day for you to enjoy the complete experience of the week of wonders. This page will be updated daily during the week (06/26/2022-07/03/2022) with the information about each respective featured track.
06/26/2022 - "Leve e Macio (Passarinho)"
As the track features a lyrical homage to Gal Costa, The Impressions' references (Fool For You) make it simultaneously feel like Gurcius' personal awakening; a dialogue with his own consciousness: recorded when pandemic started in his makeshift home studio - a closet and his cell phone, while drowned in soul music. The Impressions' song has a couple. Gurcius was alone, so the track is him and himself. "Leve e Macio" stands for Soft and Easy in portuguese, title of a track by r&b group The Blackbyrds which partially influenced both the song and Gurcius' improvised lyrical adaptations. When the song was done, the music coincidentally finished and sent to him in his own birthday, the first person he wanted to show was his friend Frederico M. Neto, who died right next day. Gurcius never knew if his friend ever had the chance to check it out. The music was entirely recorded by L. Borgia Rossetti. The instrumental groove and brass arrangements were inspired by frenetic P-Funk, (mostly italian) early low-budget psychedelic erotica soundtracks, japanese jazz/pop fusion, and brazilian 70-80s popular blend of AOR with Steely Dan kicks.
An official video was produced by Cleyton Xavier (director of the experimental movie Rodson) and can be watched following the link:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_GRARpbU-c
06/27/2022 - "Lá Vem o Corman"
The song was conveived during the production of Gurcius' documentary "A Nau dos Loucos" and was a turning point for a movie that originally intended to be a conventional staff diary for "Pazucus"' DVD extras (but ended far from that). "Corman is one of the most important directors of all cinema history and his legendary good humour, love for snacks and smiling face always linked me directly to one thing: Ray Coniff. I always had the impression that exists a Ray Coniff album playing on loop in his head and it's contagious!", says Gurcius, who filmed Corman and friends at a dinner party before starting working in his movie Pazucus: The Island of Vomit and Despair. The footage was introduced in "A Nau dos Loucos", where he tried to reproduce the Corman's feeling. The results were 10 informative and dancing minutes of complete Corman-maniac excitement within the film. "I decided to sing a special tune for the moment, also moved by the 'Ray Coniff happiness' of Edoardo Vianello, and of course, by the viral energy o The Ramones, specially Mama's Boy. If someday you meet Roger Corman in person and want to see him smiling more than his usual, offer him a little ice cream and ask about The Ramones." The music/instrumental was written by L. Borgia Rossetti and performed by his band Esmectatons. A very low fidelity sketchy instrumental demo version was released long ago in Esmectatons' record Heavy Metal Golgotha (2007). It's a catchy repetitive odd rock jam, heavily inspired by the sorts of Can, PIL, Pere Ubu and The Fall.
06/28/2022 - "Find Yourself"
L. Borgia Rossetti: "I had this unfinished song. Was actually a bass riff, we played that live for jamming with Esmectatons a few times. I had drums and bass done in studio. My idea was putting out a really raw funk piece. I thought of the first three albums by The Meters. There's something about the 'not so tidy' tone of 60s to 70s transitional r&b and classic surf guitar music, that cleanliness with a natural drive/dirt. But I wanted the slapping bass and a mutant-disco, groovy ndw/nowave sound. One thing led to another, I ended recording too many details as usual, turning it into a 'zolo' thing, perhaps the quirkiest of the album. Would describe it as an extra-euphoric and less polished early XTC/Boingo. I mixed Gurcius' voice as a psychedelic stereo experiment and even added sounds of myself puking."
Gurcius Gewdner: "When I got the finished song, I thought with myself, 'this is my mind from the inside, 90% of the time; tons of contradictory voices speaking simultaneously'. The vocals are a chaotic offspring by the Fool For You adaptation remains and The Meters' 'Find Yourself' buried under pure mental confusion. I did a video for this song overlapping cats, explosions, madness and water, representing a mind flux possessed by delirium, trying to survive in a world even more chaotic. The video opens with a Roger Corman line we recorded in 2019, reflecting about the messy brain of every artist measured equally as a genius or a beast."
Official video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1P_V6lw7zY
06/29/2022 - "Meu Malvado Favorito (Udo Kier)"
By the end of 2020, Gurcius Gewdner & L. Borgia Rossetti decided to elaborate an opening theme for the conversation with Udo Kier about to happen at CRASH movie festival (
youtu.be/jK0PVgfZ1Tw). It didn't happen exactly as planned, but the material was later edited into the official video (
youtu.be/xs_S5LzbVJk). Gurcius' lyrics celebrates this actor, loved by so many important directors from classic arthouse european films, B-movies and even Hollywood. The music was a collaboration between L. Borgia Rossetti and his Esmectatons' bandmate Göbel, who recorded the synthesizer's main rhythm. Original artwork was produced by Victor Bello for the official video/single/t-shirt released 2021 by Bulhorgia Produções.
06/30/2022 - "Dublê de Lixo"
Inspired by Pino Donaggio's 'Telescope' - his theme is certainly one of the many highlights from De Palma's 'Body Double'; being simultaneously mysterious, ludic and melancholic, it perfectly fits the screenplay's crescent unraveling.
Gurcius: "In COVID isolation times, I heard this song on repeat during reflexive walks. I suggested recording our own version of it, and I'm gonna use it at the key-scene of a future movie, centered around voyeurism. Fairly enough, I named our interpretation 'Dublê de Lixo' (literally Trash Double) since I made the official video for it (
youtu.be/kDL58rJVA-0) where from the bottom of my hideout, possessed by excitement and curiosity, I behold: mountains of styrofoam and trash freely growing in the fields, in harmony with innocent mammals and chickens, not aware they're being observed."
L. Borgia Rossetti: "It was Gurcius idea. I like the movie but must admit I couldn't remember anything about Donaggio's theme except it was good. So I got to hear it. How to describe it? Proto-ethereal 80s retro-futurist? It was all synth. I said I'm doing the opposite (though I wasn't thinking anything really pretentious). I got to keep the same 'vibe' - hate that word, is that even a word? -, but only guitars. I had that neon foggy feel in mind since I had forgotten the film in its details. My memory sucks sometimes. So I thought of late night city lights, by empty streets. I thought of Walter Hill's 'Driver' and 'Bubblegum Crisis'. That AOR soundtrack, but filtered through a smoothier ambient veil. Yet no drums. I got carried away and recorded a wannabe hardrock/fusion solo over the atmospheric (and yet funky, again) background; somehow the song asked for it... or I was just naturally willing to test things. As any other track from this album, the results were satisfying, beyond my expectations. And the video Gurcius made for it is probably my favorite off the album."
07/01/2022 - "Lloyd Kaufman (O Herói de Tromaville)"
Gurcius: This record is basically a Wesley Willis's album in the sense of paying audio tributes to what shows up in front. Here I thank Lloyd Kaufman, TROMA's creator, for changing my life with Toxic Avenger.
Rossetti: Its formula is basically the same as Udo Kier's theme. Gurcius' singing praises nonstop for someone over a heavy electro punk hit I've produced with the brilliant help of Göbel's creative synth rhythms. If you enjoyed our music until now, there's no reason to skip this track.
07/02/2022 - "Água de Bebêr"
This track was exclusively produced for BarKino, a fortnightly radio show on UK's Soho Radio hosted by Pedro Montenegro focused on finding out some of Brazil’s most exciting new artists, as well as interviews with and one-off recordings of those very same artists. During quarantine it’s also become home to plenty of covers, the vanguard of Brazilian music taking on the canon, resulting in a compilation series called 'On Your Own Cover' (broadcasted entirely from 19:00 to 21:00, 12/07/2020) featuring another amount of brazilian artists covering classics from Jorge Ben, Jards Macalé, João Gilberto and more - Esmectatons also played Jocy de Oliveira for the same edition. Gurcius & Rossetti's pick was Água de Beber. What Gurcius' described as 'small changes in its metrics and lyrics' was actually an outrageous wordplay for bossa fanatics; and the music was completely re-structured. Rossetti got the main jazzy chord progression and brought up a disturbing but dance-y minimal electronic tune. Controversially the catchiest yet most ground-breaking musical violation featured not only in this album but at the respective compilation it was first released, by some strange coincidence it reached Tom Jobim's relatives in UK during its London radio broadcast. Unfortunatelly, and perhaps predictably, it was considered an insult against the beloved brazilian composer; a composer who's also seriously admired by Gurcius and Rossetti.
Official video:
youtu.be/EIcO4iMm7as 
