With an insatiable appetite for raucous experiment, Fumaça Preta had the potential to be quite the extravagant slice of Saturday night entertainment. Hot off the back of their latest release, Impuros Fanáticos – the Brighton-come-Amsterdam four-piece were descending upon BLEACH tonight, courtesy of the wizards at Acid Box and Dictionary Pudding. Fumaça are a band, hell bent on dragging you into their psychedelic eye of jazz, Tropicalia and funk; this all blew many, many minds when demonstrated on record, their latest release being named album of the week in many record stores and publications. How can they transpose this temperament for the obscure into a live setting? Well, it starts with face paint it would appear.

Fumaça Preta took to the stage presenting themselves to be quite the extroverts that the music. too would suggest. Clad in face-paint, sunglasses and open necked onesies, it brought the impenetrable obscurity into a physical light; it was engaging and breathed soul into the set from the off. This is a band of characters and the music was captivating when played live. Mosh-pits opened up down the front as the band kicked through songs such as ‘Décimo Andar’, with its abrasive time changes, it’s riveting funk groove that bounces through the song and Alex Figueira’s reverberated yelps. The set was dampened though by the lack of sound that travelled towards the far-side of the room. Unless you thrust yourself forward to the front, guitar parts that on record throw songs into the acid-fuelled void fell flat, caught somewhere between the front and the bar area. It dampened the fantastic set making it sound more like a neighbour playing music through a wall.

‘Baldoñero’ kicked the set into life. Down the front it pushed audience members through the heavy Sabbath sounding riffs all the while they were being jarred and nudged in different directions by the pulsating rhythm section. The blissful kaleidoscope of ‘La Trampa’ opens with the haunting synth sounds that were cast upon the stage tonight with its white backdrop and dim, red lighting – the whole thing appears exceptionally intimidating and eerie. That’s what you really want though, you get the impression Fumaça want this too, however with the sound being a little flat, it falls short of its purpose a little. The horror that it poses is let down. This is no fault of the band though as they pound away tirelessly onstage; samba-infused beats hammer away underneath organs that rattle around on the surface giving the music that Night of the Living Dead feel.

Guitar solos are audacious and mesmerising, they treble the intensity of the set and add a new dimension to the pulsating, organ and rhythm section. The opening to ‘Ressaca de Glória’ is poignant with its fuzzy beginning that blisters as it passes showing that this is a band that follows wherever the inside of its brain takes it. It’s a carefully crafted set that poses danger and intrigue. The mishmash of music cultures within the cauldron that Fumaça Preta toy with works in a live setting; it’s rare that a band can play live and generally make an impact on your mood and general feeling but Fumaça work it well. The musicality within the set is all that they promised, it’s just a shame the sound of BLEACH did such a good job of sucking it dry. All promises of haunting and Dracula was ironically jilted as the venue was the vampire around the neck of Fumaça’s sound. They are now a band that I really, really want to see again.
Tom Churchill
Photography by Ollie Thomas

Website: fumacapreta.com
Facebook: facebook.com/fumacapreta
Twitter: twitter.com/FumacaPretaBand