Brazilian singer
Cibelle was just a five-year-old child in São Paulo when she told her mother she wanted to start taking guitar lessons. Her mother agreed, and
Cibelle moved around from instrument to instrument, trying her hand at the piano, percussion, and voice. As a teenager she was more interested in acting, appearing in commercials and promotional spots on MTV Brazil, but eventually realized that singing was her true passion and started performing at jam sessions around the city. It was at one of these sessions that she met the then-unknown Yugoslavian DJ
Suba, who performed his version of synth-heavy samba for the crowd.
Cibelle was intrigued by his interpretation of Brazilian music and, at a friend's urging, got up on-stage to sing with him.
Suba was so impressed that he invited her to come to his home recording studio to work on an album, what would later become the seminal
São Paulo Confessions. Though the producer died tragically shortly after the record's release,
Cibelle continued on, appearing on guitarist and singer/songwriter
Celso Fonseca's 2003 album,
Natural, and releasing her own self-titled debut album on Six Degrees/Ziriguiboom. She followed up in 2004 with her EP About a Girl, and two years later
Shine of Dried Electric Leaves, which featured duets with
Seu Jorge and
Devendra Banhart, came out. In 2007 a digital-only EP, containing remixes of the
Tom Waits song from
Shine of Dried Electric Leaves, "Green Grass," as well as some exclusive tracks, was released.
The year 2010 brought the release of her most critically respected album, Las Venus Resort Palace Hotel, on Crammed Discs. Unbinding followed in 2013. ~ Marisa Brown