After the sleepy, intriguingly foreign bedroom pop of Absolutely Almost Sure and the aptly titled follow-up Migraine Fever Dream, the genial host of those recordings — Brazilian-American composer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Rafael Melo — in the elegant guise of Late Again, could go noirishly nowhere else but the softly sturdy, jazzy, samba sounds of his heritage.
The result of that brief, dark trip, Clearly, It’s All Staged, turns the textures of sand-shifting Brazilian jazz from the silty beaches of Rio and into an intimate, quiet, but electronically alive corner of Williamsburg.
Starting with the breezy self-care jazz of its first single, “Easy on Myself,” and utilizing the musicianship and production of Brooklyn’s indie-everything finest (Heal Mura, Ella Walton, Nathan Dies, Jared Yee), to say nothing of a rare collaboration with legendary 1970s bossa nova jazz composer Arthur Verocai, the only thing “late” about Late Again is the simmering, end-of-an-evening vibes.
JazzTimes spoke to Rafael Melo following the September release of Clearly, It’s All Staged.
I was a huge fan of Migraine Fever Dream, but was pleased to hear that you had more jazz in your heart and your melodies this time out on Clearly, It’s All Staged. There’s the inclusion of smoky saxophone solos, softly trilled vocals — the whole thing is ripe with more tactile, atmospheric jazz than the tech bedroom dream-pop of your previous work. Why?
I think a lot of this record is me trying to come to terms with two antagonistic sides of how I write. On one hand you have “Chick’n Tenders,” an indie-pop jam that is anything but jazzy. On the other you have “Nothing by It,” of which 70 percent is this saxophone solo.
I guess the bedroom pop is the silly part of me, having unpretentious fun with too many synths. And the atmospheric jazz you’re describing comes out more often when I have something stuck in my chest that I really need to let out. But I am, clearly, both those things. And in a way, I’m trying to map out that ambiguity throughout Clearly, It’s All Staged.
Can you discuss the connection between what you do as a musician-composer and your videogame studio, Sad Socket? Do you believe that the emotive jazz vibe of the new record is a way to further humanize yourself from the tech-mechanism of Migraine Fever Dream and your music before 2025?
Interesting one. As a multidisciplinary artist — or a dude who reeks of ADHD — I’ve been learning to use different mediums to express different things. And I think that the emotive layers of the new record are me coming to terms with the fact that music is the best way I know how to explore that kind of emotion. I’ve always fought the urge to be cloying. I’ve fought it really hard. But I am slowly trying to figure out a world where I’m also being honest with myself.
How do the jazzy, cinematic sonic elements work for what you’re singing about or lyricizing?
In most songs I write, the feel comes before any lyrics. I try to purge a feeling out as a melody — it’s therapeutic as hell. If it clicks, the words usually follow on their own. One good thing about being an independent artist is that deadlines are flexible, so I’ll mostly write a song when I really need to. “Good” thing with the state of the world right now there’s a lot to write about.
Yes, but more so than your previous work, Staged contains the supple, jazzy, softly psychedelic sounds of your Brazil origin story: the Gal Costas and the Caetano Velosos of Tropicália. Why now, with Staged, is it a good time to celebrate that?
I think that I never wanted to advertise my Brazilian-ness blatantly in my music. One reason is that I didn’t want to be put in that weird “World Music” box that Latinos usually get shoved into in the U.S.
The other is that sometimes I feel like I need to deserve it before I can own it. I wrote a B-side about this a while ago. It’s a slowed-down Brazilian phonk about not feeling entitled to play the rhythms of where I’m from. The song is called “Sad, Sad Funk.” It all comes back to that ambiguity I mentioned before. There’s this limbo: I was a kid, like many other ’90s kids in Brazil, raised on indie-rock and everything shipped from the U.S. and UK played on MTV.
It took me years to dive into Tropicália, but once I did, it ended up defining my college years and it led me to work on a bossa nova-folk project that existed way before Late Again. The bottom line is I carry parts of both U.S. and Brazilian culture. But maybe not the entirety of either. Now, going forward, being Brazilian will always be a central part of my music. All my acoustic guitars have nylon strings.
As far as Brazilian jazz goes, you have a master on Staged. How did it come to pass that you worked with Arthur Verocai on this “People Pleasers” track? That is huge. How was he to work with?
Making “People Pleasers” with Verocai is probably one of the moments of which I’m most proud, ever, honestly. Over the years I’ve ended up working with a lot of random, notorious people, but being on the phone with Verocai for the first time was the only moment in my life I actually noticed my hands were shaking.
I was raised as a child, looking up to his music. Then I randomly found out we had a mutual connection, I reached out and he agreed to help. We talked a lot over the phone, though sadly I couldn’t be in Brazil in person at the time. He’s a very chill, nice guy. Brilliant, of course. Very few musicians in the world can have five notes of their song played and have you immediately recognize it’s them. I also didn’t know before, but back in the ’70s he stopped putting out original music and had to work in advertising production houses for financial reasons — something I deeply relate to.
Quite famously, you are the current king of the bedroom recording session. Do you want to say something about fitting all of the Brooklyn musicians in your upstairs closet?
[laughs] Nathan Dies (bass), Jared Yee (saxophone), Ella Walton (singer) and Heal Mura (mixer, drummer, coproducer) didn’t all fit in my closet, so we ended up getting a couple of days at a dear friend’s recording studio in Bushwick. Still, all my vocals, guitars, and synths were proudly, and claustrophobically, recorded in my bedroom. Still.
What earliest recorded track on the new record signaled where the rest of Staged would go?
Tonally, I’d say “Easy on Myself” was the song that helped me understand where I want to go next. Not necessarily musically. I wanna talk about tone here because it took me a while to find the right one for Late Again. You know, blending all these opposing layers we were talking about.
If I’m being honest, it’s not my favorite song on the record. But it’s a song about taking it easy on yourself. The lyrics are mundane but they still felt sincere to me. It’s easy to listen to but has more layers than any of the other five. And it has a silly music video that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I hate taking myself too seriously. I wanna feel real shit but be able to laugh about it as well. I’d really like to make songs that can be sad without being jarring. Maybe make you dance while you’re crying. We already have too much unwarranted pain in the world. If I’m supposed to share mine, as trivial as it is, I hope it comes with something positive too.
What is this new record titled after? In fact, let’s go one step further — why call yourself Late Again in the first place?
Clearly, It’s All Staged plays on the skepticism we tend to bring when we approach anything we watch or listen to. I’m often more cynical than I’d like to be in life. Then again, this is the most sincere music that I have put out so far, and I thought it’d be funny to give it an ironic title that questions that sincerity. As for Late Again, I’m just always late. It takes me way too long to do the dishes, to leave my apartment, to put my music out there. I feel like I’ve arrived late to every single place I was ever supposed to be. JT