ALIVE is an album devoted to overcoming. Maycon Ananias, inspired by a distressing biographical chapter, spends part of it engrossed in creating musical pieces. These were birthed during a period when a “huge personal dilemma and at the same time a blessing” emerged, to quote the composer, producer, and arranger himself, whose career, in brief, includes the music for “Teus Olhos Meus“, winner in the “Best Soundtrack” category at the Los Angeles Brazilian Film Festival (2012).

ALIVE traces back to an accident the artist suffered, a collision that resulted in compound fractures, preventing him from playing. The slow but inevitable return to music, and even a portion of his recovery, is linked to all seven tracks of this conceptually interconnected album.

At the beginning of the first piece, Broken Leg, Bruised Face, after chords that assure there’s much more to come, a synthesizer note picks up where the piano stops, followed by the cello and the other strings of a quartet. This start foreshadows the unique atmospheres of the album, where the electronic, so organic in its nature, intertwines with the acoustic as if it inherently belonged. In There’s a Place Called Home, a consistent melodic inclination constructs a wordless song, gaining momentum and reaching a refined climax near the end. With a sharp metaphor rooted in the biting and playful arcades of the 1980s and 1990s, Insert Coin (Continue), the final track filled with contrasts, turns towards the art of starting anew and symbolizes ALIVE as a whole: from a strenuous biographical process transformed into a nod to life, emerge songs that rejuvenate and enchant.

Text: Daniel Bento – @enxerguemusica