Babe, Terror "Babe, Terror"

Artist: Babe, Terror
Album: Babe, Terror [EP]
Label: Unsigned
Release date: 5 September 2008
Genre: Rock
Style: Experimental
RIYL: Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan

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Tracklisting:
01. Winnie Peg From Winipooh
02. My Olympic Films 1980
03. Mount Dorothy
04. Nasa, Goodbye
05. Os Santos
Total running time: 29' 06"

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[Babe, Terror - Open MySpace page]

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[Babe, Terror - Nasa, Goodbye - Video Clip]

"If you are a fan of either No Age or Animal Collective, or wish there were an act that fell between those points, you may enjoy Babe, Terror, a one-man band from São Paulo. Mr. Terror is not of a piece with much of the music posted here, where catchy tunes and perceptible timekeeping are the order of the day. Babe, Terror speaks to my love of a certain kind of noise. Because this music doesn’t involve form in the way verse-chorus songs do, I have a hard time pinning down the variables. There’s usually a drone involved, bits and bobs pop up, and things move at a leisurely pace. But that’s an equally good description of terrible music, so don’t write it down. The Babe, Terror song (song?) “Nasa Goodbye” on his MySpace page does the trick, whatever it is. (Insert struggling metaphor here: an birdhouse caught in a flatbed scanner; a dress fitting inside a wind tunnel filled with acorns; etc.)

I e-mailed Mr. Terror, and his response is below. I like the fact that he introduces himself only after introducing his neighborhood:

"I live in Perdizes, a quarter with great contemporary hippie and (old) Italian influence in the city of São Paulo. One of the major Brazilian soccer teams, Palmeiras, which was established by the Italian community in São Paulo, is settled there, four blocks down from my home.

There are some pretty odd places in this neighborhood, places that seem to have been forgotten by the rest of the city, tiny hidden spaces, and ramps that would freak out even the most daring skate rider. Most of all, it is a beautiful, mystical and peaceful neighborhood, an inspiration for some of my musical ideas. I am Babe, Terror. My name is Claudio and I’m twenty-eight years old. “Terror” could be roughly translated a “horror” in English.

Babe, Terror started in early 2008, mainly due to my desire to make some homemade music, to attend and to give sense to this stage in my life. It was a simple and irrational musical impulse, which then became a conscious effort of creating music for people (me included) to listen to on a really cold Saturday afternoon, at home, through some big earphones. Therefore I began trying to create a kind of “musical fiction”: stories about love, childhood, love during childhood, and memories, which are told though the voices of those fictional characters within the songs. These ideas remind me of the meaning of the Portuguese word for “horror.” A kind of horror in a poetical and lyrical sense, though.

I make my music in a really homemade, crafty way. Every sound is based in some hand clapping, table beating, voice distortion, microphone, digital effects."" [Sasha Frere-Jones]

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