Review
Genre and Mood
Red Axes made Caminho De Dreyfus as house, but house heard through psychedelic rock. Their label, Correspondant, filed it among the duo’s mutant house jams and called it psychedelically flavored; the mood is groovy, a little quirky and pleasantly gritty, a dance record with sand in its gears.
Song Summary
The title is Portuguese, and so is the singer’s background: Abrão, born in São Paulo and living in Tel Aviv, is the featured voice. Correspondant’s description of the record is the best guide to how it is built: a weatherbeaten bassline supporting a hand-picked cast of kinky cowbells, raspy guitar hooks and Abrão’s eccentric vocals. The memorable thing is that cast itself, rock guitars and old-fashioned percussion arranged on a house frame.
Musical Breakdown
No source we found times or analyses this recording part by part, so this guide follows the parts the label names. The version embedded here runs a little over five minutes; the official video uses a shorter cut of about three and a half.
The Bassline
Correspondant calls the bassline weatherbeaten, and everything else is described as resting on it.
The Percussion
Listen for the cowbells, which the label calls kinky and hand-picked, a percussion sound with a long history in disco and funk.
The Guitars
Raspy guitar hooks cut across the groove, from a duo whose members first played together in a psychedelic rock band.
The Vocal
Abrão’s voice arrives as the record’s guest. The label’s word for it is eccentric; listen for how it sits against the rough guitars.
Concepts in Focus
A bassline is the lowest melodic part of a track, and in house it often holds the whole thing together. Correspondant’s description puts it first for a reason: the cowbells, guitars and voice are all said to ride on it.
A <a href=“https://korczis.github.io/sonic-playground/concept/featured-artist/” class=“concept-link font-medium text-primary-700 underline decoration-dotted underline-offset-4 hover:decoration-solid dark:text-primary-400” data-concept=“featured-artist” title=“A guest performer credited on another artist’s track, usually as “feat.”: a rapper’s verse, a singer’s hook or a second voice. Features bring together different styles and audiences and are central to hip-hop, R&B and dance music.“>featured artist credit names a guest on someone else’s record. The 2013 twelve-inch was credited to Red Axes featuring Abrão; the 2016 release that carries this recording lists Red Axes alone, though the voice is still his.
The music video was directed by Amitay7 and Eran Hilleli, with Abrão Levin and Ariel Mortman acting in it, and it uses that shorter cut of the track.
Artistic Context
Dori Sadovnik and Niv Arzi met at fourteen, played together in the psychedelic rock band Red Cotton and started Red Axes in Tel Aviv in 2010. Abrão’s link to them goes back to that band, whose only LP he produced and engineered, Resident Advisor notes. Caminho De Dreyfus came out on Correspondant in 2013; the duo’s first album, Ballad of the Ice, followed on I’m A Cliché in 2014. Compare Chaim, Meital De Razon – Love Rehab, another Tel Aviv club record built around a voice.
Impact and Reception
Correspondant says the record helped propel both the label and the duo, and for its fiftieth release in 2016 it brought Red Axes back with two new tracks, Avalon and Sequência Astronomical, beside this one and its previously unavailable instrumental version. Remixes by Rebolledo and Marc Houle followed, the first on the I Love Techno 2013 compilation. Play it loud enough to hear the cowbells.
