Guto Brant

Produced by the author in partnership with Brazilian composer and scholar Kristoff Silva, the 80s-based single Mal & Bem adheres to the structures of dance genres from the post-disco era, such as synth-funk and boogie.

Its music video, directed by Raval Filmes and featuring surprising special appearances (such as the Swiss-Brazilian actor Paulo Tiefenthaler, the actor/director Chico Pelúcio, and the artists Efe Godoy and Sara Não Tem Nome), portrays a Brazilian suburban scene where, as in the song, a church and a bar coexist side by side.

Extending the ideas contained in the track to the screen, Mal & Bem is a danceable, pop music video, and a film that presents a reinterpretation of the antagonism that marks contemporaneity.

Mal & Bem was released in October 2022.

Although written and produced under the influence of the genre that became popular in Brazil in the first half of the 20th century, Na Vida, A Vida É Quem Sabe O Que Faz is an alternative and unusual carnival song (or "marchinha"). Its arrangement, composed of a collage of processed instruments and samples, establishes a provocative ambiance that leads the listener to wonder whether one hears the song itself or the sound of the environment where someone else listens to the song.

The lyrics, an ode to the incoercible and uncontrollable nature of life, would prophesy the very fate of the track that, written and recorded in a hotel room in a single day, would surprisingly hit impressive numbers of plays on TikTok (+ 60M), staying in the third position of the platform's Brazilian Music Top for weeks.

Na Vida, A Vida É Quem Sabe o Que Faz was released in February 2023.

Pombália is a five-track EP that Guto wrote, recorded, and released during the pandemic — and whose theme revolves around the incongruities of the Brazilian nation. Through different perspectives, its songs denounce the intensification of social chaos caused by the conduct of disastrous policies and the current challenges of a helpless generation.

The name, a neologism, comes from the nickname of the apartment where Guto lives and composed/produced/recorded the EP in total isolation. In addition, the term could be another way of naming Brazil, something like “the kingdom of miscellaneous, or the place of disorder”, in the artist's words.

“Through a hauntological perspective, the songs paint a Brazil that is tormented by the dark chapters of its history that have not been properly closed”, he explains.

The concept of hauntology — created by French philosopher Jacques Derrida — also applies aesthetically to the EP, which resorts to the use of "objects" from cultural memory to represent some sort of persistence of the past. Guto used excerpts from old video reports, as well as noises captured directly from analog sources (tapes, vinyl records, synthesizers) to achieve the sounds heard on Pombália.

“The instrumental parts, as much as at times will sound like they were extracted from old records, they were practically all composed and recorded now. These are musical ideas created precisely from the rescue of languages ​from other times”, rewinds Brant.

Out of the five tracks on the EP, two of them received music videos: Um Sopro, with an animation created by the duo DoideraTV and later awarded at the Bizarrya Short Film Festival (Portugal) and Big Muddy Film Festival (United States); and the song Sem Farol, with a video directed by Vitor Meuren. Sem Farol was awarded at MADRIFF (Spain), BARCIFF (Spain), Moinho Cine Fest (Festival), Bogotá Music Video Festival (Colombia) and Brasilia Online Short Film Festival (Brazil).

Pombália was released in July 2021.