[Cover photo credit to Pan Alves]

The band Oruã has released “Real Grandeza”, the first single from their upcoming LP, Passe, which is due for release July 19th, 2024. “Real Grandeza” spotlights the lo-fi, experimental sound that Oruã has been bringing to the Brazilian underground scene. It’s also a song that embodies “a central tenet in the bands ethos – resistance to fascism.” 

Bandmember and producer, Lê Almeida, describes:

..Real Grandeza’ and many other tracks on this album are from a time when 3/4 of us lived in a house  together in Búzios, a beach town on the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The topic of this track was inspired by a real event, when we saw the news reporting that a young white man with blue eyes had robbed many chic apartments in Southern Rio. With his privilege, he left the scene unnoticed and unpunished. It’s like he was endowed with real internal grandeur.

Their upcoming LP, Passe, draws on other social and political issues within Brazil, and specifically in Rio de Janeiro.

The band reflects:

…It’s often at the margins of Rio where creativity flows most freely. Lê Almeida says that violence fuels this work, in contrast to his gentle demeanor … Since he was young, Lê has had several experiences where violence – that he’s witnessed or been a victim of – has been used as a source of power and control, just as it has been in Rio for centuries. Oruã’s music can be seen as a reaction or resistance to this violence, particularly during a particularly turbulent time in Brasil’s history. Oruã works out of Escritório in the Centro neighborhood, in a “somewhat forgotten” area of Rio. The space is not far from Cemitério dos Pretos Novos, a mass grave where 30,000 bodies of slaves are buried. A gruesome memory, literally under the surface, of Brasil’s long and violent history of slavery.