g-clef

Review

Oh wow, this is genuinely one of the most peaceful things I've ever given my ears to. He gives us a mix of ambient, acoustic, and some quality singing that all comes together to simple create something so perfectly blissful that I was just in awe of the perfection of the peacefulness here. It's a fairly barren composition, but that only works in its favor. It really makes you focus on what he gives you here. The guitar is great, and clearly very well played. The main attraction though is his and the women on this EP's vocals, which are simply incredible. It feels so unbelievably personal, and small. Sometimes songs need to have big compositions, with these large overarching ideas, but here, it's limiting size is so perfectly executed. This feels like incredible meditating music. I cannot stress enough though, that this EP is still filled with skill, despite being barren, and small, the singing is so beautiful and well presented along with the guitar, and the other instruments that add to the songs here. Another thing this album ended up doing was making my heartbeat much louder than it usually is, and I don't really know how, but in the moment, it just happened, and I went with it. Don't question things that you don't have to. I'd also like to mention the amount of flow that each song has to the next, I mean seriously, it's perfect, at times I genuinely couldn't tell you when the song changed, and I think that's completely perfect for what this is. I can't confirm but I'm almost certain that the first 3 songs were recorded in the same take, because the flow is genuinely incredible there. Overall, this EP brings you to a meditative state, and shows you a part of yourself you might not have known existed. This album brings you peace, because it is peace.

I could draw comparisons to this EP, Liana Flores' 'Flower of the Soul' comes to mind with the familiar wispy calming guitar. Or perhaps Nala Sinephro in her more quiet moments. But I don't think there's another album that fills the same void that this one does. It's a void that you don't really know is there until you start to search for it. But once you find it, you realise it's what you've been missing for so long. This music is wonderful for meditation, personally I think music made specifically for meditation can be a bit too conseptual and not actually bring me to a state of peace. But this EP does that for me. It has just enough to focus on that you're not trying to hold on to something, but at the same time not too much where you can't drift away to it. It is everything you want from an EP of this nature. Stephanie Borgani and Lucca Simões really round out the sound here and this wouldn't be the same without them. Even though Gabriel is the main singer they entirely build the atmosphere in the perfect manner to bring out not only his vocals but the guitar playing on this record. The EP also comes with an audio-visual element of them playing the EP which is beautifully shot in an intimate light. It really gives you a view into how they were able to bring such a wonderful work to life. It is unfortunate that this hasn't gotten much of any attention outside of Brazil and even there it's scope was limited. I hope that this EP sees a second life as a cult classic EP for years to come for those worthy enough to wander into the perfection that is Matraca Sessions.