DECRIPTAS

Caio Csizmar is a Brazilian composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer who released his debut EP in 2020, and followed it up with his debut album last year. Decriptas is an experimental and avant mix of classical, free jazz, and prog rock that is quite charming and beautiful, despite being off kilter and odd. The use of chamber prog in avant music is not new, but Csizmar's approach is. The music often seems relatively simple, but can be surprisingly layered and labyrinthine. This makes sense, when you consider that the album title translates to 'Decrypt', and each of the song titles are named for logical processes that can be used to solve problems. Indeed, Csizmer provides a cipher with the CD of his album for which he is offering a prize to the first who solves it. As per the Bandcamp blurb, this is music "for lovers of experimental, dense, Brazilian art rock and for lovers of enigmas, cryptography, history, codes and mathematics".

Perhaps we need those logical processes of the titles to decipher the music within, as they sound more chaotic than logical, especially within the rhythms and pulses (or should that be polyrhythms and polypulses?), as the long-form nature of the pieces allows for many changes. Of course, the more one listens to the album, the more it reveals, and the easier it is to comprehend. The depth and density of the music makes Decriptas an immersive listening experience that is increasingly rewarded with each repeated listening. As a multi-instrumentalist, Csizmar is clearly incredibly talented, and all instruments are played at a very high level, but my favourite is probably the drums. I love the drumming on this album so much! So much of this album is led by the rhythms and changing time signatures of the drums, and they are played with a great deal of panache and passion.

I have to also mention the vocals, which are quite wild, reminding me of a lot of the Italian avant music I listen to. At times the guitars and keys are reminiscent of classic Italian prog bands, too (rather than the usual suspects from the UK), and if I didn't know any better, and wasn't paying close enough attention, I could easily believe this was the music of an Italian artist, rather than Brazilian. Perhaps this is simply one more charade from Csizmar, from an album of charades and puzzles, or perhaps it's a nod to the fact that the logical processes of the titles all come from the Old World - an allusion to the area and era, that can also be seen in the album's cover art. I might think I were reading too much into it, if it were not for Csizmar overtly stating that "the concepts of logic that give the tracks their title [. . .] are present in the structural development and character/elements of the pieces, in the lyrics and in the cover art." I'm not claiming I've decrypted Decriptas, and nor am I ever likely to. For me, the enjoyment is in the enigma.