Tetine vs. Pasolini: The Baron, the Bishop, the Judge, the President and the Relative

A 11 track electronic album (49m 21s) — released September 6th 2019 on Slum Dunk

This album features the register of the music composed for the film-performance Tetine vs Pasolini: The Baron, The Bishop, The Judge, The President and The Relative, recorded live and presented at Sesc Avenida Paulista in São Paulo, in June 2018.

Conceived as verbo-vocal-visual immersive environment, constituted by soundscapes, found industrial sounds, texts, songs, conversations and beats, The Baron, The Bishop, The Judge, The President and The Relative explores a number of ethical, philosophical, and social-historical questions related to the current authoritarian & fascistic political waves experienced in Brazil, the US and Europe, in dialogue with the universe, aesthetics and politics of controversial Italian filmmaker, poet and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini, murdered in 1975.

The current moment in Brazil, which has led the country to one of its worst political and economic nightmares since the military coup of 1964, has served as a starting point & background to the production of the 11 pieces featured in the record. With the impeachment of The Workers' Party (PT) first female president Dilma Rousseff in 2016 - falsely accused of corruption in a plot painstakingly architected by a congress sponsored by old oligarchies, the white and wealthy neoliberal elite, corporate media, far-right groups and evangelical forces in conjunction with Brazil's network giant TV Globo's manipulative tactics - a new contemporary form of dictatorial chaos has come to life. These events have instituted a pervasive atmosphere of violent social, political and existential backlash against a young 'democracy' with a long and complicated history of tyranny, chronic instability and deprivation. The music and content in The Baron, The Bishop, The Judge, The President and The Relative conjure up these brutal spaces, being also highly reminiscent of the rigid landscapes of social and racial divide, economic recession, unemployment, censorship experienced in the country during its 21-year military dictatorship regime.

The album critically investigates the archetypes of its title through distinct temporalities, as it both reports and delves into the emergence of fascist and misogynistic discourses in counterpoint with voices of political activists, guerrilla groups, survivors and victims of the period. This is done in a non-linear, intuitive and sensorial way through dialogues, poems, interviews, and selected audio fragments of various sources.

Tetine vs Pasolini: The Baron, The Bishop, The Judge, The President and The Relative explores these sonic and dramatic aspects (be they harmonic, melodic, orchestral, etc.) through epic post-minimalist pieces, anti-songs, spoken word, post-punk and atonalism. Its music is physical, tense, atonal and melodious at once. It evokes the dark spectres of Brazil's recent past, present and future, as well as, the repetitiveness and/or pervasiveness of its existence under the forces of capital (including the ever-present control of the US) and its unfoldings through questions of class, raciality, gender, sex, consumerism and technology.

Some of these elements are also found in previous compositions and performances of Tetine – particularly in earlier albums such as "Film Tapes" (2018), Tetine vs. Sophie Calle (2002), Música De Amor (1998). On another note, the record pays also tribute to and is influenced by the work of composers such as Enio Morricone, Bernard Hermann and filmmakers / directors such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Patricio Gusman, Gillo Pontecorvo, Chris Marker and others.

The Baron, The Bishop, The Judge, The President and The Relative was conceived as a work of fiction. However, any resemblance to real happenings (that took place slightly later in Brazil) were not purely coincidental.

All music written by Bruno Verner and Eliete Mejorado

Line up:

Bruno Verner, instruments, electronics, bass, electric piano, vocals

Eliete Mejorado, film, voices, instruments, electronics, samples, fx

BIOGRAPHY

Tetine are formed by Brazilian musicians/artists Bruno Verner and Eliete Mejorado, who have been living in Hackney in East London since 2000. The pair met in 1995 in Brazil while taking part in the local underground art post-punk scene of São Paulo and Belo Horizonte, and since then, they have been producing a multitude of singular works and actions through the hybrid universes of performance art, music, film / video and poetry. With more than 18 albums released by different record labels in Europe and Brazil (Soul Jazz Records, Slum Dunk, Mr Bongo, Bizarre Music) and several 12-inch singles and compilations, Tetine have been performing in festivals, art galleries, clubs, cinemas and theatres around the world, as well as making appearances on radio shows and devising hybrid and experimental projects around their music and art.

The duo's presentations, performances, films, installations or other actions have been shown in renowned institutions, museums and cultural venues including the National Museum of Contemporary Art & Sternessen Museum in Oslo, The Wire's Adventures In Modern Music in Chicago, Gorky Theatre in - Berlin, Barbican Centre in London, Venn Festival in Bristol, Serralves Museum in Porto, Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, Palais De Tokyo in Paris, Liverpool Biennial, Bordeaux Biennial, Trienalle di Milano, Atelier Claus in Brussels, South London Gallery in London among many others.

Tetine have also been instrumental in bringing the Brazilian underground music scene to the attention of the UK for a number of years. The duo compiled, produced and mixed the first ever album of Baile Funk (Funk Carioca) outside of Brazil - Slum Dunk Presents Funk Carioca Mixed by Tetine, 2004 released on Mr Bongo Records, as well as the acclaimed compilation The Sexual Life of The Savages- an essential primer to early-80s Post-Punk from Sao Paulo, released on Soul Jazz Records in 2006. More recently, Tetine have also self-released a collection of obscure post-punk tapes entitled Colt 45 – Underground Post Punk, Tropical Tapes, Lo-Fi Electronics & Other Sounds from Brazil (1983-1993).

For more information, complete biography here: www.tetine.net

The Brazilian electro punk push continues apace with this duo who fuses baile funk, punky noise and performance art to engaging effect. - Time Out London Time Out London

Art duo Tetine’s pumped-up punk-meets-funk sound and frenzied on-stage antics make them a creative force to be reckoned with. Having released a prolific eight albums and performed everywhere from Sonar to the Whitechapel Gallery, Eliete Mejorado and Bruno Verner are beacons of their native Sao Paulo avant-garde electronic underground.(...) his is the radical duo who have brought Funk Caroica – the intense lo-down Miami Bass driven sound (literally meaning “Funk from Rio”) – within London’s cultural radar. Their regular show on Resonance FM, ‘Slum Dunk’, has given essential exposure to Brazil’s most experimental soundscapes, covering electronica to post-punk, since 2002. - Aimee Farrell Fact

Who let the cãos out? Those wonderfully crude, butt-bouncing beats from the favelas of Brasil known as funk carioca (or, often, Rio Funk) - sort of a cross between Miami Bass, ghetto-tech, electro and crunk - is becomingincreasingly popular in the northern hemisphere as of late. That trend will only continue with the release of the tons-of-fun Slum Dunk Presents Funk Carioca, courtesy of the South American music archivists at the UK's Mr. Bongo label. The album is mixed by the São Paulo - based art-and music-scene lunatics Eliete Mejorado and Bruno Verner, a.k.a Tetine. - Time Out, New York Time Out New York

What makes Tetine so good is that their off-beat, messy quality makes them natural, seemingly effortless, and therefore beautiful.” - Vanessa Labi URB, Chicago

Tetine are Feminists, un-followers and inventors of their own scene; an uncut diamond. - Chicks On Speed Chicks On Speed

Ingested with their history in mind,Tetine feels as playful as it is relaxed - soundtracking an artistic project that wears its authenticity, confidence and continuing need for experimentation proudly on its sleeve. Less ‘we do not give a fuck’, more ‘we do not need to give a fuck’ - a crucial difference in a music market riddled with attitude, desperately seeking substance. - Stuart Buchanan Fat Planet

As usual, real innovators like Tetine rarely get the props they deserve. So if the freaky tweaked electro-booty bop of Let Your X’s Be Y’s bring to mind the baile funk jams you’ve heard before, it’s probably because fellow Brazilian knuckleheads Bonde do Rolê and CSS copped their best moves from Tetine’s Bruno Verner and Eliete Mejorado, who started working as Tetine way back in 95 when DJ Diplo was just record nerd Wesley Pentz. - Tim Perlich Now Toronto

It was the beats that got me - some of the biggest, most booming and booty - moving sounds I had ever heard,with little pretense other than getting dancers into the bump 'n' grind position and keeping them there. - T'Cha Dunlevy The Gazette - Montreal

filthy, lo-fi blend of 80's hip hop, early 90's rave, wobbly bhangra, bruta Detroit techno, Miami bass, Kraftwerk samples and hilariously out of date synth stabs, plus bonkers MCs barking at you in Portuguese. Oddly, much of its synthetic, bleepy ringtone sound invokes UK grime (track 6 has clearly 'influenced our own MIA). Can't wait to hear more. - John Lewis Time Out, London - Critics Choice

Tetine are the two downright crazy Brazilians, Bruno Verner and Eliete Mejorado. Well, we can confirm the latter is off her box anyway. We've just seen a postcard of the pair posing outside UK supermarket Tesco; Bruno pushing a trolley in a beenie hat, Eliete stripped down to a gold sequened bikini and red lipstick. It's not so much the outfit that convinced us she's raving mad, or the fact that's she wearing it outside Tesco. It's because she's wearing this get-up in England. We're talking wet, windy and ferociously freezing. Superb! Blending electro with carioca funk and rap, this album is dirty, gritty and utterly underground. - Elle J Small F.Magazine

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