This month, David Byrne's brilliant label Luaka Bop, realesed Yonlu's first - and sadly destined to be only - album, called A Society In Which No Tear Is Shed Is Inconceivably Mediocre. The music on the album is a collection of bedroom recordings by a talented and deeply introspective teenager, whose ability to fuse Western modern folk soundscapes (with many, maybe too many, hints of the late Elliot Smith), with variations on Bossa Nova rhythms and Caetano Veloso-style guitar picking, seems remarkably beyond the depth of his 16 short years.
Sadly, before Yonlu (aka Vinicius Gageiro Marques of Porto Alegre) was to turn 17, he took his own life. His music was discovered on his computer posthumously by his parents, who had no idea that he had been recording anything.
Perhaps surprisingly, the collection of songs that Luaka Bop has put out, also include a lot of joy and whimsy. The playlist is uneven and wavering, as you would imagine the mind of a teenager may be, but it also breathes and sparkles. The naked quality of the tunes is destined to make the disc one of the more important recordings of the year, even if it is equally destined to be one of those discs you'll only want to hear alone with your headphones.
Luaka Bop has generously made the whole album available for listen on Yonlu's web page.
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