If Caetano Veloso started working with Arthur Russell instead of Arto Lindsay at the end of the ’80s, it might have sounded like Bruno Berle. Since his 2022 debut, No Reino dos Afetos, the Brazilian songwriter has bridged lo-fi dream pop and música popular brasileira, or MPB, by adding his acoustic guitar and thick vocal timbre to looped sample-based beats. On his latest album, Sem Fronteiras, when the alchemy works, he lands on weird, tender lullabies like “A Noite de Estrelas” that extract and expose the alien elements of the Brazilian sound into a kind of “hyperbossa.” When it fails, it’s because Berle is still finding a way to compound the many genres he is interested in—indie rock, forró, lo-fi hip-hop, and disco—without erasing their distinct identities. In “Amor Inteiro,” the fusion of off-tone declamations and batucada drums feels provisional, like a low-budget Carnival parade.
“Hyperbossa” can still describe the aesthetics of Sem Fronteiras. The songwriting keeps within this strange territory where bossa nova’s blasé attitude, concise strums, and tranquil whispers join compressed snares and hi-hats that sound like DAW presets and Auto-Tuned mumbles and wails. The contrast of genres draws direct parallels to Helado Negro or, before that, Cornelius and the Shibuya-kei scene. But because Berle is Brazilian, he is immersed in a vivid set of less renowned traditions. His music recalls the psychedelic Northeastern sound of Zé Ramalho and Geraldo Azevedo, as well as other overlooked local scenes like the kitsch folklorists of the Jequitinhonha Valley. If it was released in the ’80s, the haunted romanticism of Berle’s “Vim Dizer” could have been like Paulinho Pedra Azul’s “Jardim da Fantasia” or Beto Guedes’ “Sol de Primavera,” obscurities that found a mainstream audience after appearing in TV soap operas.
Born in the middle of the Northeastern state of Alagoas, one of Brazil’s most impoverished regions, Berle jumpstarted his career after moving to Maceió and joining the bedroom pop scene led by Batata Boy in the early 2010s, before relocating to São Paulo in search of national exposure. As on Berle’s previous records, the production of Batata Boy and the free exchange of compositions with other members of that Maceió scene are central to Sem Fronteiras. Among the participants are some of the most promising new auteurs in Brazilian music like Phylipe Nunes Araújo, Marina Nemésio, and Nyron Higor. Higor shapes the opening track with his ambient whistles and guitar, while Araújo’s Nick Drake-inspired lyricism and throat-humming are spread throughout the record. Like Berle, Higor and Araújo have also been signed by Far Out, a London label known for influential reissues of 1970s MPB. In this light, Berle can be seen as carrying the legacy of classic MPB; a more critical interpretation is that he is merely imitating it.
Sem Fronteiras makes an effort to escape the warm quicksand of typical Brazilian influences like Clube da Esquina or Veloso himself. In the singles “Não Posso Viver Sem Você” and “Manhã,” Berle tempers his style towards a sentimental ethos, more influenced by the R&B of fellow Alagoano Djavan or Filó Machado than the usual suspects. The title track sounds like Uruguayan candombe beat or Nigerian highlife buried under a dozen reverb filters. Other tracks offer glimpses of orchestral quadrilhas or festive rhythms sculpted by his melodic pulse. In these moments, Berle provides a vital drive into MPB. In the second half of the record, however, these creative moves lose steam, and Berle’s tame, sugar-coated approach hinders his own playfulness. The Whitmanian descriptions of “hummingbirds looking for honey” and “magical fountains” betray the vacuous nature of his sound, and for now, this lack of depth is what separates Berle from the legacy he hopes to carry.
