Matt Elliott inaugurates April’s M.Ou.Co. and The Slow Readers Club close out the month

Letrux, one of the biggest independent artists on the Brazilian music scene, is another of the highlights on display. The stage of the Porto cultural space also hosts a concert staged for children (Tangerina) and another by A Voz do Rock, the well-known collective that brings together elderly people to sing Portuguese rock songs.

“The End of Days”. It is neither apocalyptic nor premonitory. It’s just Matt Elliott’s last work to promise enigmatic echoes around the Porto neighborhood of Bonfim, at the inauguration of M.Ou.Co.’s April calendar. truths. This is the return of the British guitarist and vocalist to Portuguese lands, after the visit that served to promote the album “Farewell to All We Know”, just over a year ago.

Matt Elliott returns, this time, with half a dozen songs, which, says the promoter, “are not gray, but not completely black either”, flowing “between an absolute sadness and a probable joy”. To Matt Elliott, who has accustomed us, since the mid-90s, to both dark and haunting sounds, which teleport us to the dawn of the apocalypse. “Always with that voice full of bass that helps to accentuate the stories told”.

This time, there is a saxophone to thicken the atmosphere composed of guitar and voice, to ensnare us in the narrative. “We continue to hear, in Matt Elliott’s music, the tradition of lamentations, misfits, injustices, and misunderstandings that pass from continent to continent, from country to country. From Fado, Delta Blues, Balkan fanfares, Cape Verde morna or Yiddish music. In Matt Elliott, there is this space for musical expansion, which removes everything that is in excess. And what we are left with is just pure emotion”, he stresses.

If April will start in the M.Ou.Co. in a nocturnal atmosphere, it will close on the 29th (21:00) with the evocation of a post-capitalist dystopia and a society overwhelmed by an interposed technological wall. And everything she hides. We are talking about the very recent single (“Modernise”) that The Slow Readers Club, a quartet from Manchester known for its indie electronic sound, is using to spur curiosity about the LP that is in the pipeline, “Knowledge Freedom Power”.

The disc, from which a mixture of synth-rock and alt-rock is extracted, with flashes of hope and resistance – with sounds that remind many of Muse, Bloc Party, or even White Lies -, will pass through the cultural space of Porto. With five studio albums on the way and two live albums, it is the first time that the Slow Readers Club performs in a concert hall in Portugal, by the hand of the promoter Os Suspeitos by Mr. November.

The first part of the evening will feature Surma, the musical project by Leiriense Débora Umbelino, who has a new album (“Alla“) on stage.

Já o meio do mês trará ao M.Ou.Co., no dia 15, o virtuosismo de uma das maiores artistas independentes da cena musical carioca e brasileira da atualidade: Letrux. Para um espetáculo que o promotor garante “intimista, astral e poético”.

Antes do concerto (às 21h00) haverá lugar para o lançamento do documentário sobre a multifacetada artista, pois que, além de cantora, Letícia Pinheiro de Novaes é também compositora, escritora e atriz. Intitulada “Viver é um frenesi”, de Marcio Debellian, a peça documental (com a duração de 36 minutos) será exibida às 19h15, para proporcionar uma experiência mais completa (com um custo adicional de três euros sobre o bilhete para o concerto).

Acompanhada de viola e teclas (Arthur Braganti), Letrux entoará no Porto canções dos seus dois aclamados discos “Em Noite de Climão” e “Aos Prantos”, onde se notam as suas influências musicais: Fiona Apple e Caetano Veloso. Um concerto “minimalista na sua essência”, porém de “potência máxima” garantida em perspetiva.

Abril é também o mês em que os opostos se atraem no M.Ou.Co.. Como assim? Simples: a sala de espetáculos do complexo receberá um concerto encenado para a infância e, dias depois, o de um coletivo que junta idosos que cantam músicos do rock português. E que muito tem dado que falar!

In the first case, it is Tangerina, a concert for children that, inspired by the book “A Invenção do Dia Claro”, by Almada Negreiros, lends life and sounds to words. It takes place on the 7th of April (at 5 pm) and proposes a “journey through the universe of the word made either in prose or poetry, through a boy who is talking to his mother”. The guiding thread uses the metaphor of the tangerine that rolls from a basket to the sea and, along the way, discovers new places. It’s the world.

Tangerina carries a musical arrangement that identifies with pop-rock styles, with jazz harmonies, classical music, ethnic sound ambiances, and also dance/party. Along the lines of Almada Negreiros, Tangerina’s music aims to “be as simple as it is sophisticated, full of rich and contrasting dynamics, luminous and vital colors”.

The marks of time work wonder 14 days later, on April 21 (9:00 p.m.), the night in which under the spotlights of Sala M.Ou.Co. there will be the group A Voz do Rock, a collective from Vise, mostly octogenarians, who for nine years have been singing the hits of historical names of Portuguese rock. A musical performance that, by breaking (more than) generational boundaries and challenging stereotypes, celebrates above all the pleasure of sharing music, vitality, and meaningful life. And soul.

A Voz do Rock is a project by the multi-instrumentalist and composer Ana Bento, who has spread quality across countless stages (such as Casa da Música, in Porto). The collective participated, for example, in the special tribute concert to Xutos & Pontapés and in several television programs, and has already received the Good Practices of Active Aging award, awarded by the Coordination and Regional Development Commission of the Centre.

The show by A Voz do Rock at M.Ou.Co. will feature the collaboration of Kalú, the drummer of Xutos & Pontapés.

M.Ou.Co. “Stay. Listen. Play”…

Schedule of M.Ou.Co.:

• April 1 – Matt Elliott, 21:00

• April 7 – Tangerina, 17:00

• April 13 – Music and Health Gathering, at Musicoteca, 21:00

• April 15 – Letrux – documentary “Living is a frenzy”, 7:15 pm

• April 15 – Letrux – concert, 21:00

• April 21 – A Voz do Rock, 21:00

• April 22nd and 23rd – Canal 180’s anniversary, 9 pm, in Sala M.Ou.Co. and Bar

• April 29 – The Slow Readers Club, 9 pm

About the M.Ou.Co.

M.OU.Co. is the acronym for Music and Other Things. Located in the heart of Invicta city, in Bonfim, it is the first hotel in the country with a multidisciplinary concept aimed at the music world. With 41 studios and 21 rooms (full of artistic evocations), a restaurant, bar, swimming pool, terrace, and gardens, the complex occupies a total of five thousand square meters and is assumed as a cultural space of choice. To give maximum expression to its claim – “Stay. Listen. Play” -, the M.Ou.Co. It has a concert hall, three rehearsal rooms, a music library, a space for the health and well-being of the musician, and other distinctive details that invite you to a prolonged discovery and a hotel experience full of meaning(s).

Always confirm with the concert hall or promoter the conditions of access, confirmation of the date or time, tickets place of sale, price, and availability.

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