Soulful

As Sessa, singer-songwriter Sergio Sayeg has a particular knack for making sounds that are both cosmic and pastoral, gentle and awesome. His lyricism follows in this same vein, engaging in deeply poetic explorations of nature and the quotidian. It is not surprising that on luminous new album Pequena Vertigem de Amor, dedicated in large part to the birth of his and his partner’s first child, he continues to find beauty in the world and bring it forth in his typically gorgeous brand of languid funk. This record, like all of his music so far, is easy to enjoy, and more nuances emerge with each listen.

The album’s title is a fitting one: a little vertigo of love, a phrase that evokes the heady feeling of irrational and unconditional affection. It works in tandem with the wistful gauze of instrumentation that shifts and flows throughout the record. Sayeg’s acoustic guitar and lead vocals; an equally important backing chorus of singers Cecília Góes, Lau Ra, Ina, and Paloma Mecozzi; Biel Basile’s typically light-handed percussion; Marcelo Cabral’s grounding bass, and a handful of strings, synths, winds, and horns make for a substantial and versatile ensemble. They can (and do) drive as well as they drift.

There’s no need to push, though, and Sessa and company know it. Every song feels as natural as breathing, albeit with quirkier rhythms. It’s remarkable how organic the wah effects sound on “Bicho Lento,” and how Filipe Nader’s alto sax on “Gestos Naturais” evokes the sensation of wind sweeping through leafy branches. To make something sound so effortless takes a tremendous amount of skill and care. These are here. This is art that springs from love.

That love is audible in the jaunty keys of “Nome de Deus” and the luscious string arrangements of the closing ballad “Revolução Interior” alike. In “Roupa dos Mortos”, the wordless quality shines through in the instrumental eloquence of pulsing bass and fluttering flutes. In “Dodói”, there is a childlike innocence in both its lexical content (“dodói” roughly translates to “boo-boo”) and the plaintive stomps of drums and synths. The affective layers of Pequena Vertigem de Amor are rich and multisensory.

Stylistically, Pequena Vertigem de Amor leans retro. Warm hues of 1970s samba and soul are foundational to the whole album, but are not so garish as to shoehorn it into the throwback realm. Instead, they are open, capacious enough to let Sayeg let loose with meditations on his present situation as lover, father, and human. It is an LP of sounds familiar enough to radiate comfort and original enough to feel fully realized.

Sessa’s body of work thus far has been uniformly excellent, extending to this third full-length release. Refreshing musical subtleties and emotional complexities make Peqeuna Vertigem de Amor worth repeat listens. As Sessa, Sayeg makes magic. He knows how to harness the sublime in all things and translate it into song for us. Whether pondering the wonders of new life or simply standing in joy against inevitable struggles, Sessa finds sparks of inspiration everywhere and knows just what to do with them.