Lau Ro - Cabana [Far Out Recordings]

In Brighton, the young non-binary singer-songwriter found themselves immersed in the city’s vanguard of free-thinking artists and musicians. Lau Ro formed Wax Machine, whose psychedelic and prefigurative community offered a glimmer of countercultural hope amid a landscape of national political decline. Between 2020 and 2023, Wax Machine brought three cult albums to life in as many years, influenced in part by their British predecessors of psychedelia across progressive folk, rock and jazz. But the essence of Lau’s Brazilian sound was already beginning to flower in the Wax Machine releases. Now, putting down even deeper roots, Lau Ro steps forward with their debut album: Cabana.

Named after the small wooden shed at the bottom of their garden where it was recorded, Cabana is a deeply personal album of memory, self-discovery and imagination. Melancholy and hope entwine throughout ten tracks that combine dreamlike bossa, ambient folk, hazy tropicalia and majestic MPB. The music is swathed in masterful string arrangements and psychedelic electronics in equal measure, while Lau Ro’s delicate yet firmly self-assured vocals launch a scathing critique (in both English and Portuguese) of polluted urban life, while dreaming of a utopia rich in nature and wildlife.

Like the musical equivalent of semantic drift, Lau Ro’s displacement led to the creation of another Brazil. A mythical place in their soul, as they describe it: “where the sunshine and joy of my childhood remained untouched.” Lau continues: “It’s music that might sound like it’s come from a parallel universe Brazil, rather than its modern landscape. Nowadays, I’m rediscovering Brazil, going back as often as I can and trying to stay connected with these different parts of the world and of myself.”