Satwa
Satwa

Along with Raja and Tama, Satwa is one of the three qualities of reality - or Gunas - if we may simplify things in order for a less complex explanation. Raja and Tama are in opposition to one another and Satwa is the balance, the rhythm, the spirit that lies between body and soul. Subtle and luminous, it's like a liquid crystal that gives clarity to the mind, an organising force where the principle of sound is included.

In 1972 I had just come back from living in the US (mainly in Arkansas and New York) and was back in Brazil, which, at that time, was amidst the worse period of the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985. Lula Cortes had just arrived from Morocco and had brought along a popular Sitar from that country, a place that, at those times, had a great mystique to the psychedelic culture.
In spite of being only 19 years old, I was already well known among the underground community of Recife, my hometown and capital city of the state of Pernambuco and when the university students academic directory decided to promote the experimental fair of music (which was our local version of Woodstock, with music from dusk to dawn for the two whole days at the Stone Theater of New Jerusalem) they invited me to coordinate the musical part of the festival.
That was when Lula and I met.

With many things in common (we both were poets, songwriters, painters, graphic artists) we became friends instantly and I started going to his house...

Along with Raja and Tama, Satwa is one of the three qualities of reality - or Gunas - if we may simplify things in order for a less complex explanation. Raja and Tama are in opposition to one another and Satwa is the balance, the rhythm, the spirit that lies between body and soul. Subtle and luminous, it's like a liquid crystal that gives clarity to the mind, an organising force where the principle of sound is included.

In 1972 I had just come back from living in the US (mainly in Arkansas and New York) and was back in Brazil, which, at that time, was amidst the worse period of the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985. Lula Cortes had just arrived from Morocco and had brought along a popular Sitar from that country, a place that, at those times, had a great mystique to the psychedelic culture.
In spite of being only 19 years old, I was already well known among the underground community of Recife, my hometown and capital city of the state of Pernambuco and when the university students academic directory decided to promote the experimental fair of music (which was our local version of Woodstock, with music from dusk to dawn for the two whole days at the Stone Theater of New Jerusalem) they invited me to coordinate the musical part of the festival.
That was when Lula and I met.

With many things in common (we both were poets, songwriters, painters, graphic artists) we became friends instantly and I started going to his house to play with him. For hours we would sit and play, him with the popular Moroccan sitar I with a twelve string folk guitar. And we would invent and create music, mixing scales from two different hemispheres of the planet as well as mixing different hemispheres of our minds. Slowly, a blend of folk Brazilian themes, hindu like music and rock 'n roll started to brew. We started recording the themes we were developing and discussing the strange fact that we were creating music with a "third sound" as we called it. It was Satwa, the sound of balance between two opposing realities.

Soon, it was only natural that we should record an album. There was that old recording plant, The Rozemblit, which was in serious economic difficulties at those times but which had all the necessary equipment to record and print the vinyls and the covers, so , why not rent the the studio and record the album ourselves?
We had a vague sense that we were doing something unusual, but it was so naturally done that we did it without knowing that we were recording the first independent LP in Brazil. That knowledge only came more than twenty years later, when Jose Teles, a researcher and writer, published the book "Do Frevo Ao Manguebeat (From Frevo To Manguebeat)." In the night of the 20th of January, 1973, we entered the studio and started recording the songs. The military dictatorship had imposed a heavy censorship on all artistic manifestations and all songs had to have had to have the lyrics submitted to the censors. so, Satwa wouldn't have any lyrics. The only words would be the titles of the songs. If the term had come already in use, we were doing world music. Katia Mesel, Lula's wife at those times, participated in the creation of the graphic design and made suggestions for the production. A moth on a branch, printed through multifaceted glass in two pure colors (Cyan and magenta) was on the frontside, while on the back there were two of my drawings, pictures of both of us and my text, saying that all the music recorded in the album had been produced by the fingers and minds of Lailson and Lula. The label was also a produce of our minds, saying that Satwa had been produced by Kif Records a division of the Abracadabra!

The album was launched, people were stunned by it but then...Lula and I had different plans and we parted ways. He went to a solo career and I formed a band. To top it all, two years after the recordings ahuge flood hit Recife and the Rozemblit Studios were practically submerged. The master tapes of Satwa - and all the other records which were recorded from 1973 to 1975 - were lost forever... and Satwa went unmanned througout the space - time continuum. The world changed, we changed, the century changed and then, in January 2004 an electronic letter reached my mailbox saying that Satwa had been retrieved from the time warp where it had been adrift and had landed on a vinyl spaceport where it's message could be understood.

Captain Nemo, of the Time-Lag patrol had found it and was interested in sending it to new orbits and to other times. For years people had asked me to release Satwa again, since it had become an icon of those times, but it wouldn't make sense to me. Why do the same thing over? But now, there were synchronicities that couldn't be overlooked. Throughout the past weeks, about four people had come to me asking something or other about Satwa; Lula's younger son is also called Nemo; the idea was to release the record again not only in CD format but also in vinyl...and the name of the label, Time -Lag explained exactly what had happened to Satwa: it had undergone a leap through time! Since the master tapes were long gone, we had to work from one of the last original vinyl copies that I still had and re-master it so the sound could be restored to present times. All controls were now set to start a new journey...

Somewhere, 30 years back, two persons are creating a special kind of music; somewhere, 30 years ahead, you're listening to that same music. Past and present only exist in relation to a fixed point in time and space. So, suit yourself. Pick a point and join us into that voyage in the present. Welcome aboard our intertemporal spaceship Satwa.

-Lailson