You wouldn't have known it from listening to a random selection of records from the time, but all was not sweetness and light for Brazilian music in the '60s and '70s. For every dozen records filled out with springlike bossas and summery sambas, there were a few with an inordinate degree of bittersweet reflection (above and beyond the autumnal notes struck by many bossa novas).
Francis Hime was one of those Brazilian brooders. A singer as well as a songwriter responsible for most of his material,
Hime released a wonderful self-titled album in 1973 that ranks up there with
Caetano Veloso's 1971 LP and the obscure
Obnoxius by
José Mauro. With production from
Milton Miranda and the musical direction of Maestro Gaya,
Hime's introspective ballads get exactly the type of swirling orchestrations -- ripe with woodwinds and muted brass -- they need for maximum effect.
Hime focuses his mood throughout the album, making it the type of record that's more of a piece than consisting of movable parts, but its beauty is indisputable. ~ John Bush