3 Sessions In A Greenhouse

3 Sessions in a Greenhouse is an excellent Brazilian music dub mash up, from Lucas Santtana, available on vinyl. On the 15th anniversary of its original release, Mais Um revisit a lost classic from the catalogue of one of Brazil’s most regarded and influential contemporary songwriters

"The liveness and lightness of the sessions shines through...Bass enjoys pride of place, while spiky guitars, harmonised brass, and voice take turns in the foreground, echoing into muted silence at the stroke of a fader...This is as solid a dub outing as has issued from anywhere beyond Jamaica." 7.4 in PITCHFORK

"Futuristic splicing of samba with Black Ark-style dub...A 2006 Brazilian cult item" MOJO

"This remarkable LP finally gets to obtain the wider appreciation it deserves" THE WIRE

The album features Tom Zé and manguebeat pioneer, Gilmar Bola 8. Lucas Santtana’s 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse fuses psyched-out samba and baile funk with original Black Ark-style studio distortion and spiritual dub dread, laying the foundations for his seminal Sem Nostalgia LP five years later, and in the process, establishing Santtana as an elemental force of Brazil’s current new wave.

From discovering Coltrane, Pierre Schaeffer and Bulgarian Choirs at an early age to playing flute in Gilberto Gil’s touring outfit in 1990s whilst learning guitar and writing songs on the side in hotel rooms, it was clear from a young age the Bahia-born polymath was no stranger to stylistic intersections nor would he become a stranger to versioning classic album tracks in dub.

Whilst touring his second album Parada De Lucas (2003), Santtana and his group, Seleçao Natural, were often caught in soundcheck ‘re-mixing’ classics by Naçao Zumbi and Tom Zé, as well as some of his own, in a foundation style, forming the groundwork for what would become 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse.

From the driving Nyabinghi-style percussion of opener Awô Dub to the psychedelic 2-tone reworking of Lycra – Lymāo, laced with Aggrovators-esque dub horns, 3 Sessions salutes the greats of 70’s roots reggae triumph yet never steers far from its time and place. Tropicalia Icon Tom Zé features on Santtana’s slightly zippier version of Zé’s samba dub Ogodô Ano 2000 and American journalist Phylis Huber’s reading of an extract of Virgina Woolf’s The Waves on the expansive 9min-long Balearic/afrobeat dub A Natureza Espera, is poignant and trippy. Santtana’s take on Naçao Zumbi’s Pela Orla Dos Velhos Tempos, featuring original member and percussionist Gilmar Bola 8 on vocals, takes on techier references of the Detroit type, whilst vinyl closer Into Shade is a sumptuous psych rock dub ballad, co-written by Arto Lindsay.