Burnier e Cartier – Fotos Pra Capa do LP (1976)

Burnier & Cartier
“Fotos para capa do LP”
Released 1976 on EMI/ODEON

1 Minha mãe não sabe de mim (Claudio Cartier, Octávio Burnier, Wrigg)
2 D. João (Octávio Burnier, Reinaldo Pimenta)
3 Recreio (Octávio Burnier, Wrigg)
4 Elogio da loucura (Octávio Burnier, Wrigg, Strunck)
5 À beira de nada (Octávio Burnier, Wrigg)
6 Catarina Canguru (Claudio Cartier, Paulo Azevedo)
7 Dia ferido (Claudio Cartier, Octávio Burnier)
8 Lenda das amazonas (Octávio Burnier, Wrigg)
9 Ecoline (Claudio Cartier)
10 Sítio azul (Claudio Cartier)
11 Pedra pintada (Octávio Burnier)

Here is a nice and warm record that I first heard about through the blogosphere, through our friend JThyme’s blog I do believe, who in turn got turned on to them via Loronix if I’m not mistaken. Burnier & Cartier were a duo from Rio de Janeiro who recorded three albums between 1974 and 1978 and then seem to have dropped out of music. Octávio Bonfá Burnier (son of Luiz Bonfá) and Claudio Cartier had actually been composing together since 1968, and their first album, for RCA-Victor in 1974, featured musicians like Novelli, Bebeto, Paulo Mouro, and Chico Batera. As far as I can tell, none of this people played on THIS album.

The duo were signed to Odeon records at the recommendation of Milton Nascimento, and thus we see a couple former collaborators of Milton on the album — drummer Paulinho Braga and Luiz Alves on bass, both of whom would record a whole bunch of people (many of them very famous) during the 1970s and beyond.

Before I even knew this, the album reminded me a bit of the Clube da Esquina collective, but still different enough to have its own identity. All the songs have two acoustic guitars as the base of their arrangement, and their sound blends jazz-rock, mellow psychedelia, classical music, folk-rock, and some artsy, progressive baroque string arrangements. Um, I guess this might make them “fusion”? I dunno. Don’t be frightened. But in fact the last ten minutes of the album (composed of three overlapping tracks) is entirely instrumental (which has a certain Egberto Gismonti quality to it, although probably less adventurous).

In spite of having a name like a French-Canadian fur-trapping company, and looking like a Brazilian version of Seals & Crofts, these guys made some incredibly intriguing music. Although completely accessible, there is something tenaciously un-commercial about their sound that perhaps explains why these albums are very hard to find. I am not certain if the first one is on CD (I found a copy a long time ago on a well-known blog). THIS title is one of the shoddier reissues on the 100 Anos de Odeon series, in terms of packaging — the good news is that the sound is actually very warm and nice. But not only is the album title not listed on the CD tray (leading it to be replicated in lots of published discographies as simply ‘Burnier & Cartier’ which is partly why I left it like this in the folder name), but the back tray card actually states that the album was released in 1968 (in the booklet, it is correctly stated to be from 1976). So much for giving such a beautiful album the care and attention it deserves when all a label like EMI cares about is its bottom-line. Good to know they were paying attention…

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19 Comments

  1. Love their stuff, thanks for the file upgrade sir 🙂
    Saw them live at this concert when I was a teenager :
    http://lascintasrecuperadas.blogspot.com/2009/06/don-burrows-and-brazilian-connection.html
    worth checking out!

  2. One of my all-time favourites. Beautiful playing and songwriting, with some intriguing lyrics (just a theory, but do you think Recreio is about the dictatorship?).
    I agree with you about the packaging — that Odeon 100 Anos series was unbelievably shoddy. On the other hand, the Japanese CD of their first album has notes on each song, plus comments on later Burnier & Cartier-related projects. Unfortunately, it's in Japanese! I don't like that first album as much as this one, however.
    Their third album was a project with Australian flutist Don Burrows, a mostly live double album that's also largely wonderful. I believe it was Burnier's daughter who supplied that to Loronix in MP3 — I've never seen a lossless copy.

  3. Re the post at http://lascintasrecuperadas.blogspot.com/2009/06/don-burrows-and-brazilian-connection.html

    Is there a link there? In any case, there are two songs missing there from the version I have. Is it the American copy mentioned on the site?

  4. hi pawlyshyn , yes there is a link in that little black box with the weird GIF of a red arc and a litte green box moving over it. The archive is split into two and so far I have only been able to get one of them thanks to the stupid shared IP setup of my internet provider.

  5. The lascintasrecuperadas version is the double album, but it is missing the last two tracks from Side 3 – "Perte Capital" and "Ficaram Nus".
    Here are those two tracks :
    http://www.mediafire.com/?tti7zb4v03dlyd2

  6. hi, love them,
    am i not looking right, don't see a password..

  7. mr mysterious sez, the password is:
    vibes

  8. Hey F, No, it was not Zecalouro who introduced me this fine disc. I had been a big, big fan of this powerful duo's charms since the late 90's & posted both the 1974 & 1976 before Loronix did. The 1974 set for RCA Victor was truly the LP that tipped me off that there was some real science going on over there in the laboratories of RCA Brasil. I love both the '74 & '76 albums, but I like the '74 a wee bit more. I will check your rip for any differences in my Japanese remaster. This is a very nice one. Oozing with fidelity and real talent for composition. I like the Chamber qualities of this set.

  9. Yes this is some monster stuff here. It seems every time I get ready to make a post to this site, Flabb post's another killer and my thoughts change. Som/3 absolutely loved. Dom Salvador e Abolicao – Som, Sangue e Raca (1971), as a big fan of Banda Black Rio I was blown away. Cal Tjader who I hadn't even heard of, and I had the pleasure of having seen Lionel Hampton and Roy Ayres live just killing it. So you can imagine my surprise on that little gem. And then to later find out that CT did a an album called Amozonas
    with some of my favorites on the at album like Hermeto Pascoa and George Duke to name a few. And the list of great artists, goes on and on.

    I agree with just about everything JT says in his posts. Which is kind of weird.

  10. always a peasure to spend some time with you!
    cheers

  11. em pe 3 link is expired (burnier cartier fotos pra capa do lp)

  12. Hi, is there any way you can repost the FLAC audio? thanks!! love this website.

  13. what is the password to open this rar file please?

  14. Muito obrigado amigo! Thank you my Friend!

  15. muchas gracias, maravilloso album en gran audio

  16. brilliant blog, fantastic music on it! but this link appears to be dead. whatever you can do would be appreciated, but if you can’t thanks anyway for the tremendous stuff you’ve been putting up!

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