Oquestrada
Almada, Setúbal, Portugal | INDIE
Music
Press
Mit ihrer überschäumenden Spielfreude erinnern Oquestrada ein wenig an Gruppen wie 17 Hippies oder Babylon Circus nur eben einer speziellen Note des portugisieschen Fad. - Weserkurier / Bremen
Alles was
im weiteren portugiesischen Musik-Kulturkreis anzutreffen ist, wird hier mit einbezogen: Fado,
Morna, brasilianische Elemente, Walzer und Chanson, aber auch globale Beats wie Ska und HipHop
oder afrikanische Rhythmen finden den Weg in die aufgekratzten Songs dieser energetischen Band.
Und das beste daran: hier muss niemand Trübsal blasen. Die quicklebendigen Instrumentalisten mit
akustischen Gitarren, Kontrabass, Akkordeon und Violine legen der superben Sängerin Marta Miranda
einen Klangteppich zu Füßen, auf dem es sich vortrefflich tanzen lässt. Es ist die geschickte
Vermengung von Landluft, Stadtleben und globaler Migrationsmusik, die den Reiz dieser Gruppe
ausmacht. Im Untertitel heißt dieses Album „O Sonho Português”, der portugiesische Traum also. Ein
süßer Traum, der vielen noch lange im Gedächtnis bleiben sollte.
www..ooqquueessttrraaddaa..ccoom
aallll rriigghhttss - Sound & image
In this debut there’s all that makes this multi-national band from Almada one of the best and most imaginative Portuguese projects since ages: the fado as the base idea but hundreds of other styles more – hip hop, ska, Brazilian music, waltz or morna, amongst many, always with delicious lyrics, pose and detours (Roberta Flack and Billy Idol included). - António Pires, Time Out, 2009
“Their vitality is awesome, their communicative capacity also. Also awesome are their musical skills, the versatility and availability of each one and the group. Popular and with great quality - João Carneiro, Expresso
«Tasca Beat» is the popular neighborhood song based on a stylistic richness that goes from fado to popular music, passing through some balcanic references (which in Oquestrada’s vision come from some Portuguese tradition). Always with lots of humor in the mix. In a perfect world, «Tasca Beat» won’t be classified as world music as that term reduces the music that celebrates the artistic liberty that goes far away from the borders of the song. To listen in a tasca near you. - David Pinheiro, Disco Digital, 2009
Discography
Tasca Beat JARO 4295-2
Photos
Bio
OqueStrada is born from the desire of Miranda and Pablo both coming from the world of entertainment, she as a theatre actress with experience on the hidden fado houses and Cape Verdean taverns, where she began to sing, he coming from France with a suitcase full of experience in urban intervention and show design to create a portable musical project with the shape of a small neighbourhood orchestra ready to travel, where the personality and uniqueness of each one is the key point.
They invited João Lima along with his Portuguese guitar, Gerson along with his classical guitar to join the voice and the contrabacia. As the orchestra always kept the door open to other road lovers, Marina Henriques, accordionista and Sandro Manuel, trumpetist, would join in later.
OqueStrada set its base at an old cinema in the city of Almada, a lookout for Lisbon on the other side of river Tagus. In this suburban reality, they tackled the destiny and hit the road, building, year after year, their own circuit. They left in search of a country and went on building a cult. From village to village, from town to town, they took by storm the capital city where they sold out venues while singing about a hidden and migrant Lisbon, about the suburbs as charmed places. Copies of home demos were circulating the country, making them a well-kept secret for many. Their simple music grew on this adventure between small village fairs, tascas, festivals and city venues.
In OqueStrada an adventurous and independent song was created out of few resources, assuming the acoustic sampling, the DIY and a well orchestrated musical vagrancy. Some of the instruments, like the contrabacia, the percussion chair and the tiny Yamaha keyboards came in and were saved from a sad end in the junkyard. They are now key parts to the compositions. To do the world with what one finds in the way is something the OqueStrada appreciates.
Between the countryside and the city, between two centuries, the result was a Portuguese sound that tells a country in transition. They called it TascaBeat. TascaBeat is a sound that celebrates a vibrating Portugal in an intimate place where party and melancholy meet each other. A sound that winks to the fado and listens to a forgotten country, that sings with proletarian glamour the streets of Lisbon and the suburban neighborhoods. The music of a harbor where several languages fulfilled with the dream of departing to later return are heard, where we toast to a reinvented Portuguese heart. OqueStrada play the sound of the suburbs singing the old and new city. It is the old postcard worn and rebuilt by the times, it is the raw, popular and even danceable celebration of fado, as it is also Africas kuduro or funaná, or Brazil, or hip hop, or every other culture that landed swiftly in this welcoming country.
In 2009, seven years after the first concert, TascaBeat O Sonho Português (TascaBeat The Portuguese Dream) was released in Portugal, to wide acclaim, both from critics and public. It stayed in the Portuguese charts (Top 30) for four months and in 2010 it was given the international release in Europe. The band appeared on 22 different festivals throughout Europe summer 2010, had TV features on ARTE France/Germany, Deutsche Welle TV ( Germany ) and the very popular German late night show "Ina´s Nacht". The upcoming year 2011 has already around 40 reservations in 9 different countries for club shows and festivals.
http://www.myspace.com/oquestrada
You Tube links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-BkBFbwNmQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGDYa0abSXk
Links
