I want to share an incredible story here, about how music has this outstanding power in such a way that it can turn a life around in a dramatic way. This story is about Mitar Subotic a.k.a Suba wich was a serbian-born musician an composer who definitely open a new world on how electronic music could be fluid and organic, but at the same time rhytmic and futuristic.I’m going to resume some of the most imporant facts of a document written by Brazzil Magazine a long time ago, keep reading for the brief version or you can read the detailed document here.

Suba grew up in a home where both parents were jouranlist. His father, a well known TV journalist receveid the Villa Lobos Award for promotion of Brazilian culture, hence Suba early ties with Brazil, in addition Suba’s childhood was full of music studies, from music theory to orchestation.

He moved to Paris in 1986 where he composed music for theater, ballet, elite fashion shows, film and television, one of his electronic pieces that was based on Yugosalvian folk lullabies, In the Mooncage, received the international Fund for Promotion of Culture award from UNESCO, which included a three month scholarship to research indigenous music and Afro-Brazilian rhythms.

After his scolarship, he stayed totally in love with Brazil and their people, a year later he made good friends with some of the the most respected musicians and singers in Brazil: João Parahyba, Cibelle Cavalli, and Katia B, he shared with them his uncovencional way to create music, they then created a perfect complement. They composed tracks such as Sereia, Você Gosta, Tantos Desejos to merge on Suba’s debut album São Paulo Confessions which is a masterpiece.

He had planned to travel to Belgium on November 3rd, 1999, to promote São Paulo Confessions unfortunately the night of November 2nd, 1999, some smoke was detected coming from Suba’s appartment, in fact the building custodian called him through the intercom, and Suba who had been sleeping told him that he was unable to open his door. The custodian battered down the door and found Suba on his feet, very disoriented, inside the burning studio, later he died from smoke asphyxiation.

It appears that Suba reentered to his studio, his friends believe, he was going to recover a small case containing the original audio files and backups for the then new Bebel Gilberto album Tanto Tempo that was in the final stage of production.

I think Suba’s work goes beyond his studio and that he created a new path for musicians in Brazil, In conclution I believe that this story is not a sad story after all, as Suba said sometime “Life can be understood backwards; but it most be lived fowards” and yes, Suba is deeply sleeping inside everyone of us.

Here are some samples of his music.

This relatively easy to make instrument consists of several glasses of different sizes mounted upright on a wooden base, the sound is produced by moving wet fingers along the rims of glass bowls, the glasses are arranged in rows to make chords easier to play. You only have to tune it once when putting the glasses in the correct order.Listen to samples here, and here. More info here.

Despite being just 23 years old, Will Holland started his career as a young producer and musician, he already had 2 records full of funk and jazz influences “Mishaps Happening” and “Pushin’ On” these ones rapidly became part of the BBC stations tracklists. In order to make his sound so rich and inventive he tries to be very close to his music, in some cases he plays guitar, bass and sax, so he is definetly a one-man orchestra.For his last creating effort he started a journey with just with a laptop and a very strongly defined concept, he went all the way to San Juan in Puerto Rico, Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and Ethiopia to collect samples, instrument sounds and voices. Among the guests included in his album are Noelle Scaggs from The Rebirth, Ohmega Watts and the Puerto Rican percussionist Tempo, which was a member of the marvelous Fania All-Stars. The result is a multiflavored record; every track has its own personality, but at the same time it sounds as a part of a whole, in my opinion this is very hard to obtain within an album, maybe that’s the main reason that it was chosen as album of the month.

After hearing some tracks, it came to my mind the belgian producer Buscemi, maybe because Buscemi and Quantic dare to explore those hidden roots of African music.
And, by the way, if you look at the dictionary you will find that Quantic means: “a homogenous polynomial having two or more variables” this definition works very accurately to define this album.

I hope you enjoy this album as much as I do.