B
I
O
“Acrobatic, sensual, both angelic and profane” is how The Guardian described the voice of brazilian-born, canadian singer-songwriter Bruno Capinan. The Toronto based artist has released six albums in his twelve-year long career, and performed to audiences in Portugal, Canada, Japan, South America, Africa and the United States; fusing bossa-nova inspired music and an extravagant performance.
His latest release, titled "Tara Rara" (Lulaworld Records), is a full circle, spiritual collection of songs, resonant with sonic elements embedded with Bruno's Brazilian heritage. On a quest to connect listeners to the roots of his ancestors, the singer weaves a tale of love and pain, travelling from Africa to Brazil in the album's storylines. While the songs are sung in Portuguese, they are made for dancing and radiant energy - all of which embody a universal language.
Tara Rara encompasses Bruno’s deep exploration of some of his two greatest influences; Afro-Sambas and reinterpretations of Bossa Nova. While all tracks are performed in Portuguese, they are accompanied by lush arrangements made for dancing and movement. Tara Rara is a mix of vocal layers, percussive Brazilian instruments, acoustic guitar, synthesizers, programming, and a string orchestra composed of four violins, two cellos and one viola, as well as trombone, trumpet, French horn, flutes and sax.
Also a poet and visual artist, Bruno frequently collaborates with artists of various disciplines and cultural backgrounds. His voice resonates the vibrant legacy of the hybrid culture of Salvador da Bahia, the epicentre of Afro-Brazilian music. Bruno Capinan have received two back-to-back nominations to the prestigious APCA (São Paulo Association of Art Critics) album of the year list, for the albums “Leão Alado Sem Juba” (2020), and “REAL” (2018).
A fierce performer, Bruno Capinan’s approach to music making is rooted in the Brazilian tropicalia influence, which is to embrace all the vast possibilities of sound. This approach has led him to collaborate with Japanese composer Jun Miyake, who discovered Bruno Capinan via a French radio, and immediately invited the artist to collaborate on Miyake’s recording as a lyricist and vocalist. Their music collaborations appeared in the albums “Lost Memory Theatre Act 3”, and "Whispered Garden", and have taken Bruno to perform in Japan in 2017 and 2018.
Bruno Capinan first gained international recognition in 2016, with the album “Divina Graça” (Joia Moderna/P-vine records), including mentions in British paper The Guardian and France’s Libération. Brazil’s biggest publications Folha and O Globo, called “an artist to watch”, as Bruno Capinan continued to perform in between their country of origin and abroad, with highlight performances including the Rio Olympic Games in 2016 and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Tokyo in 2017.