We had the honor of premiering one of Evaya’s first songs. What drew our attention to her was the whole concept of making music that sounds beautiful to both our ears and soul. One of her first releases, the Portuguese singer-songwriter-producer sounded pop-ish and filled with a lot of vocal hooks and commercially close melodies.
Now, Evaya evolved. With the release of her debut EP, entitled Intenção (in English: Intention), she has taken several steps across other frontiers. This is music not only in its utmost form of art but also in its utmost form of sound. During the entire EP, we feel the songs are circulating our soul while our ears are paralyzed inside it. Don’t recall hearing anything like it, especially in the way it defies concepts and music in its traditional form.
Intro is the first track of the EP and an introduction to the sonority present in Intenção. Featuring Brasilian musician gadutra, this is a track that imedially leads us to a special place. Alternating between electronic and experimental, there are certain pop vibes about it, even if subliminal. It’s like they are juggling with our ear cells.
The transition to dreams, the second track, is literally what it sounds. The crystal clear vocals emerge from within the soundscape, echoing pop melodies about imaginary lives. The song always sounds on the merge of change, and the contradictory element echoing constantly in the back of the track somehow favors that feeling. We can hear the sea-sounding vibes in the back, evolving throughout. And we are always engaged with the vocal nuances that form a trip.
how to dance what its true starts off with that constancy that was built from the previous tracks but then evolves into something much more electronic and driving. Once again Evaya’s vocals are clear and dreamy, with beautiful high notes and lyrics that merge words with feelings. Around the middle of the track, the flow turns into what feels to be a more house sonority. For the first time, there is a break in the back sound, and that contributes to the feeling of having reached a certain place on this trip. The track stops a bit until once again we dive into the deep sea where the vocals take the center stage.
The fourth track of the EP has a Portuguese title. doce linguagem (in English: Sweet Language) re-affirms that deep back sound alternating it with deep drum machine elements. There is a lot of experimentalism that drives the listener closer to a feeling of earth and nature. She sings about singing to mother earth, and to living beings on them, and about how all of us can differ on language but opt-in on peace above reason. The track’s natural peaceful sonority is not obvious, but something that is induced with the experience. And it truly feels like we are on a journey. One where we can reconfigure ourselves to be less self-centered.
a fonte (in English: The Fountain) picks up where the last track has left us. It lifts up our spirits and achieves that with a more romantic approach and a less symbolic sonority. Everything is more clear, and the words are more perceptible than in any of the previous tracks. Still, the track picks up the same sense of involvement and electronic charge. It ends with the sound of bells, something very typical from Portugal (and other Mediterranean countries) bringing us closer to that culture as something taken out of memories and automatic sound traditions.
Intenção journey ends with a conceptual song with the morse representation of the EP title. .. -. – . -. -.-.. .–.- — is perhaps the most experimental song in the album. It oscillates us back and forward (up and down?) with sound waves intercalated by abstract melodies. If in previous songs we felt we were going on a journey we could control, in this one we feel the goal is the ultimate let go. And even if as a listener we try to go anywhere else, while the sound experience is going on – the louder, the better – we can’t move physically and we can’t place where it leaves us mentally either. Until the last wave comes in and releases us.
Addictive, risky but highly engaging and fascinating. This is Intenção (the intention).