Rodrigo Leão & Vox Ensemble - Theatrum (1996)

Rodrigo Leão isn't exactly the type of musician you would immediately imagine going for a solo career: on two of the pivotal bands that modernized the profile of Portuguese music in the 1980/90's while retaining a sense of cultural identity (Sétima Legião and Madredeus), his role in providing the harmonic underpinnings for the music on bass or keys was as effective as it was discreet. However, that he would choose to begin said career by composing earwormy minimalist songs, orchestrated with recourse to a chamber ensemble, synthesizers, and a small chorus singing in Latin, is what would surely make any self-respecting Tarot reader (that hypothetical creature), asked at the time to chime in on the future of his career, to subsequently give up the deck. 

It can still be said that, while surprising in his personal trajectory, that career move was nonetheless, at least in part, a fruit of its musical times, even if not of its main branches. Its melodic sensibility and compositional methods do match up with contemporary minimalist forces straddling the line between the avantgarde and pop music, like Andrew Poppy and The Lost Jockey, or Jeremy Peyton Jones and Regular Music. 

Theatrum, though, the third and final release with his "Vox Ensemble", is something else; not in terms of its approach, but of its emotional resonance, as it is positively (so to speak) dripping with pathos - the sort that, ironically, tends to afflict people wanting to believe in life being fair, love lasting forever, or that they'll never stop making your favourite ice cream - which makes this like something out of Michael Nyman's nightmares, or maybe, more recently, of Eyvind Kang's darkest moods. The sort of smashing sounds on one of the tracks even remind me of Joy Division's I Remember Nothing, and it doesn't quite feel like just a coincidence. 

I don't think Leão has ever been this good again (I lost interest quite a while ago, as he became a more aesthetically well-adjusted individual), but I can understand why he wouldn't want to either. I too might favour not appreciating it as much, but here we are, all out of ice cream.