Bruno Capinan

Interview for PanTV - PanTV

Show Here & Now! - CBC Radio

'Acalanto' music video on Bravo 24/7! - Bravo Television

See link for details - Paul Corby

There is no doubting Bruno Capinan’s Brazilian roots, even if he made this, his debut album, in Toronto with many of the city’s finest players. But while he sings in Portuguese and there’s a very clear influence from bossa nova and tropicalia, Capinan is by no means a traditionalist. And nor is he the kind of artist to simply slap coffee house electronic beats onto his indigenous music.

Instead, Capinan charts his own course, with his smooth crooning leading the way through string arrangements, jazz leanings, electronic shadings, and occasional art-rock leanings. The track Astral features a dubby Massive Attack groove, a melancholy violin evoking European cabaret, and a sci-fi theremin thrown in for good measure.

Capinan’s anything-goes approach is put to the ultimate test when he transforms Hank Williams’ Your Cheating Heart into a whispered rumba — a daring move that doesn’t sound the least bit unnatural in Capinan’s hands.

Apparently just after this album’s release, Capinan headed back to Brazil after seven years in Toronto; that’s our loss, because Gozo is sure to be one of the most inventive and rewarding albums of 2010 to be released in this rock ’n’ roll country.
Download (iTunes, cdbaby.com): Astral, Tantas Horas, Your Cheating Heart - Michael Barclay

Bruno Capinan splits his time between Brazil and Toronto, and his music sounds very much like a collision between those two cultures. The songs borrow heavily from traditional Brazilian music, but he’s layered on subtle electronic touches and rock flavours to come up with something completely new.

There’s a drifting romantic quality to most of the disc, which makes for relaxing listening. Some may find it a touch too mellow, so don’t expect it to get a dance party started in your living room. Capinan’s walking a fine line between ambient experimental music and pop, and at times you wish he’d choose one or the other. Still, it’s a remarkably original-sounding album and a strong debut from a young artist.

Top track: Oxigênio - Now Magazine

Far from the eternally festive Afro-Brazilian rhythms of his native Bahia, singer Bruno Capinan’s sonic constructs instead play out like an all-to-familiar theme of personal disaffection on his dramatic and delicate debut, Gozo. Built on a sensation more in-tune with the feelings of disconnectedness brought on by his more recent Toronto environs, songs like the searching “Captura,” with its sombre, yet bellowing, horn swells, and the equally desperate “Gozo” drip both lyrically and musically with the emotions of a man at odds with his surroundings. While this premise generally holds throughout, increasing layers of percussion and digital elements, as in the heartbeat rhythm of the suffocated “Oxigênio” or the lazy lounge rock of the Hank Williams remake “Your Cheating Heart,” help diversify Capinan’s fragile artistry. By the time the cello creeps in, the captivating effects of this plaintive, yet oddly abrasive, journey become both unavoidable and undeniably alluring. - Exclaim! Magazine

See link for more details. - Paul Corby

'sensitive, compelling, a gifted musician' - The Globe & Mail