This came out in 2000 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
As a classically trained Yugoslavian composer who scored ballet and theatre in South America, one-named musician Suba obviously learned a thing or two about clashing cultures.
He draws on that knowledge on the intriguing Sao Paulo Confessions, a work that straddles the fence between his old-world upbringing and his new-world experience, drawing on the music of yesterday and today to create a sound for tomorrow. With an electronica framework and a tropicalia aesthetic as his starting points, Suba incorporates a multi-culti pallet of sounds — traditional Brazilian instruments, delicate piano raindrops, buzzing samples, skittering beatboxes, sultry vocals — to fashion sweeping, cinematic compositions that recreate the melting-pot world of his adopted hometown with all benign playfulness and smirking musicality of a restrained Esquivel. The result: The perfect album to spin in your space-age bachelor pad between the cocktail hour and the late-night chillout.
