After eleven years in London, Luiz Bruno, better known as Lule, returned to Brazil for love, but also with a backlog of “new old” songs waiting to be reborn. The result is Lule & As Crianças Adultas Ao Vivo no Espaço, his tenth album.
Recorded live at Porto Alegre’s Sangha Studio with As Crianças Adultas, a local supergroup featuring Lucas Bruno, André Nectoux, André Garbini, and Haroldo Paraguassú, the record reframes six tracks originally sculpted in solitude on drum machines, cassettes, and synths.
On these versions, the songs breathe. Guitars slash, drums tumble, and the studio itself becomes part of the sound. What were once bedroom experiments now feel like open-ended conversations.
The album thrives on its tension between precision and looseness. Lule describes the session as “relaxed and free,” but the band plays with a confidence that suggests deep rehearsal. You can hear it in the way grooves snap into place, even as arrangements mutate.
“Eu Me Afundei Na Lama Da Culpa,” once a claustrophobic home-recorded piece, expands into something heavier and more cathartic, while the Portuguese rewrites of older English tracks carry a kind of cracked intimacy, as if Lule is finally translating not just words but states of mind.
Lule has never hidden his influences: Brian Wilson’s lush eccentricity, Arnaldo Baptista’s tropicália mischief, Frank Zappa’s satirical edge, Captain Beefheart’s fractured blues. But what makes him stand apart is how he filters those references through lo-fi textures and dadaist humor, equal parts critique and play.
Lule’s restless drive has made him prolific, with five albums in 2023 alone, alongside projects like I Know I’m An Alien and Walter Willy. But Ao Vivo no Espaço is a distillation, a reminder that his oddball vision doesn’t just live on tape loops and four-tracks. With As Crianças Adultas, his songs land with more weight, more communal energy, without losing their cracked-mirror charm.
For all its eccentricity, the album is accessible: psychedelic, funny, spiritual, and a little absurd. It’s the sound of an artist shaking off exile, reconnecting with his roots, and proving that even the strangest songs can find new life when shared with a band and an audience willing to follow wherever he wanders.
Leave a Reply