Born in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro (but spending most of her time lately going between Berlin and São Paulo), Numa Gama is a multimedia artist and producer with connections to the Brazilian art collective VOODOOHOP and creates music that defies any sort of easy characterization. Dub-influenced beats rumble and shake while clattering percussion evokes the feel of brittles tree limbs in the wintertime. Akin to the works of early Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors, Gama’s compelling aesthetic wanders through genres without care for restriction or convention. It’s a perfectly fascinating amalgam of influences and heady soundscapes in which the way forward is all too often obscured by the colossal ambitions of her creativity. Gama is set to release her third record, Me Redesenho, on March 24 via the VOODOOHOP label.
Recently, she shared a new single, “Twig People (Series de Madeira),” that finds her exploring the legend of the forest creatures which are said to inhabit the wooded areas of Heliodora in Minas Gerais, Brazil. She recorded this track in a makeshift studio there, hoping to capture the natural beauty and mystery inherent to her surroundings. Melodies mimicking rainfall, clacking percussion and a beautifully arboreal atmosphere are constructed and sustained around Gama’s hypnotic voice, resulting in an environment that begs to be explored and embraced.
The roots of this song and those of her upcoming album were laid during the 10-year birthday celebration for VOODOOHOP, some of which occurred within the waterfall of Heliodora. She explains: “After the event, I couldn’t travel anymore — I had to stay over there. I rented a house and setup an improvised studio. The song relates to the wooden beings…often seen in the trees, but in Heliodora this time, I had a different, stronger vision. They were creatures with long arms and small bodies. I tried to also translate somehow the sounds they made. These creatures were guides to this moment of creation of the record, in which some of the songs were made.”
