Lê Almeida Live at The Sou’wester

10/19/23 Free & open to the public

Sou’wester Lodge Living Room

Presented by Sou’wester Arts

“Lê Almeida is the mastermind of an unlikely and noisy indie scene that emerged in the suburbs of RIO DE JANEIRO in the early 2000s. A prolific producer, initially labeled _lo-fi_, he was called the ‘Brazilian answer to Robert Pollard’ in a report in _The Guardian_ which makes less sense as his sound has incorporated elements of kraut, free jazz, afrobeat, hip hop and Brazilian music.” Excerpt from the biography available on DATABASE.FM/LEALMEIDA

October 2023 marks the release of I FEEL IN THE SKY, LÊ ALMEIDA’s new solo album. The album was recorded between 2022 and 2023, during the tour of his band ORUÃ, with more than 100 shows in the USA and Europe. The album will be presented at SouWester, during Lê Almeida’s first artistic residency in the United States, which takes place in Seaview, Washington.

His independent label Transfusão Noise Records was born in his bedroom in 2004 in Vilar dos Teles, Baixada Fluminense, and emerged in the center of Rio de Janeiro in 2013 with the creation of Escritório, a space for recording, rehearsals and shows. More than 100 releases have been made since then. Lê played a major role in recording and mixing most of these albums, where many of the visual ideas came from his collages, associating fantastic realism with improbable combinations of environments and colors.

Since 2011 he has dedicated himself to the visual arts, taking part in exhibitions and collage workshops, both individual and collective. His solo albums Paraleloplasmos (2015) and Todas as Brisas (2016) made him travel the art world beyond the usual music scene between tours of Brazil. Both albums were released by IFB Records, a small Atlanta-based label that presses his LPs independently and distributes them throughout the United States.

Oruã, his main band, was created at the end of 2016 and since 2018 he has been traveling extensively, promoting his first albums recorded in the office on old cassette tapes. 2018 was the year Almeida left Brazil for the first time. He went to play drums with Built to Spill in Chile and with Oruã in Uruguay. His story with Built to Spill began in mid-2018 when he joined the band for its first shows in South America and the following year he traveled between the United States and Europe playing more than 130 shows, 60 of them opening for Oruã. He recorded and mixed the latest BtS release, When the Wind Forgets Your Name (2022, SubPop), where he also acted as drummer.

I FEEL IN THE SKY is out on October 6 on the Transfusão Noise Records website

https://on.soundcloud.com/gDnYT

Pic by Melanie Radford (Central Park, 2023)