Fabiano do Nascimento plays guitar with laser-guided precision, landing clusters of arpeggios and fretboard-spanning chord changes with pinpoint accuracy. The Brazilian American composer and guitarist prefers close-mic’d recordings, zooming in to highlight his agility but making his dizzying proficiency sound as natural as breathing. He spent years as a Los Angeles session musician before starting his solo career in 2015, using his virtuosic knowledge of the afro-samba and choro traditions as a launchpad into uncharted stylistic territory. Even at his most complicated, do Nascimento leaves plenty of air around each note, giving every pluck and strum enough padding to remain crisp and legible.
That understanding of space makes Cavejaz one of his most inviting and inventive works. Everything feels cavernous, from the massive Panda Bear-esque bass hits in “Auguas Serenas” to the synthesizer pads that loom over his jittery finger picking in “Berimba-Guitar.” There’s a healthy amount of reverb coating these songs, but rather than wash it all into a colorful blur, it sharpens each element, adding a slight sparkle. Overtones blossom at the edge of the stereo field; echoing tails overlap, forming wispy clouds of harmonics. do Nascimento and his collaborators keep the instrumentation minimal but find ways to intertwine and amplify their impact, creating enveloping arrangements from only a handful of sounds.
do Nascimento recorded Cavejaz in three distinct sessions. The first took place at a studio in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with producer Leo Marques and percussionist Paulo Santos, a founding member of Brazilian experimentalists Uakti, famous for building their own instruments from materials like PVC pipe and metal. The rest of the album was recorded in Japan, excerpting a live performance with tabla maestro U-zhaan in Tokyo and adding tunes from a solo session in the coastal town of Oiso. Despite its globetrotting origins, the collection hangs together surprisingly well, often playing like the result of one long, inspired jam session. As technically gifted as do Nascimento and his guests are, their greatest asset is intuition; no one overplays, augmenting what the other is doing and pulling back when there’s a risk of stealing the spotlight.
