Rita’s episode for UI Picks, a new radio series curated by the Underground Institute, for Berlin’s Reboot.fm.

Underground Institute Picks is curated by the Underground Institute, an international agency for adventurous music and platform for culture. UI Picks episodes are tailored for selected underground radio stations.
In This episode Portuguese multi-instrumentalist Rita Braga explores the whimsical and theatrical recordings made in the 20th century, with some of her favourites throughout the decades, taking you on a time travel through pleasant and delirious roads from 1905 to 1996 – from early wax cylinder single-take recordings, via elaborate cosmic and space-age instrumentals, to expressive and often camp vocalists.

A new song has been released today, as a first single of an upcoming album, recorded and produced at Baby Microbe Recording Studio in London. It’s ghostly, it’s catchy, and it will make you want to giggle and tremble and dance. More info below. Premiere on Houdini Mansions.

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“Tremble Like a Ghost” is the new single by Portuguese avant-pop songstress Rita Braga with a video by renowned animator Martha Colburn.

“Tremble Like a Ghost” is a dangerous and quirky earworm that will stay with you longer than its 3:33 minute duration. The juicy lyrics, which reference specific key dates and events that took place over the last 100 years (starting with Pickwick Club’s collapse in 1925), may leave room for interpretation for a niche audience who likes to decipher riddles – or you might just want to stomp your feet and snap your fingers along with it. The unorthodox line-up of instruments consists of violin (played by Galina Juritz), a primitive drum machine as used by the likes of Suicide or Wall of Voodoo, organ and bass. The video’s raw visuals, which combine animation and live footage of Rita and guests appearing as ghostly characters, are a surrealistic assemblage which evoke 1920’s and 30’s cartoons (think of Disney’s Skeleton Dance or Betty Boop cartoons featuring Cab Calloway), traditional Japanese style makeup and the early cinematic experiments of George Méliès.

The new album “Bird on the Moon” has been released on the French label Lunadélia Records! You can order the cd directly from bandcamp, or find it at one of my shows.

The moon bird has been navigating the cosmic airwaves, here is a list of some of the radio shows who were not afraid to play it:

Tonight 10/10 Birmingham’s Brum Radio (9-11pm)
Saturday 13/10 Hamburg’s Lado-B-Seite on FSK Radio (10-11pm – a show dedicated to Portuguese music)
Sunday 14/10 Portugal’s Antena 3 “A Profecia do Duque” (10-11pm)
in London it’s been played often on the Club Integral Radio Show and there was a recent live session on the HelloGoodbye Show, both on Resonance 104.4fm
in Vancouver it’s been broadcasted twice on the “Bepi Crespan presents….“ on CiTR FM
from Ghent, the Kinky Star Radio on Urgent.fm
the incredibly strange internet radio Shirley and Spinoza Radio
…et voilà! the list goes on

credit: Sara Rafael

Long time since I made any update.

Here is a live video with the Finnish group KUKElius performing their own version of my song Erosão at a church in Karkkila, during the 2nd edition of Kukulele Festival.

Erosão translates to “Erosion”, but they made their own free adaptation with Finnish lyrics, and renamed it Pääskynen (“The Swallow”).

I played at the opening of Nuno Saraiva‘s exhibition and used the “braguibox”, a portable amp designed and built for me by Jamba, the mad Parisian scientist who moved to Porto. Nuno was my teacher of comics and illustration many years ago and it all comes together.

Photography by Rita Delille

Was this my 12th concert in Bordeaux?

I first went to this city to meet my friend Chris Carlone (BORTS MINORTS) and joined him in Cafe Pompier, in the Summer of 2009. Since then the nice people of Let’s Panic Later invited me many times to return. This time I did a house show at Ruth’s, which turned out to be my fav house show so far. Stephane had a strange microphone from 1910 that looked and felt like a sea stone and I got to use it in some songs. He also has other peculiar instruments such as that toy V-guitar.

extra: memories from the 1st time in Bordeaux! I can’t wait to play with Borts Minorts again one day.

Borts Minorts @ Café Pompier, Bordeaux 2009

Borts Minorts

Borts Minorts @ Café Pompier, Bordaeux 2009

Borts Minorts

Borts Minorts

Soon will post more about this trip which was quite amazing. Here is a newspaper cut from Karkkila, where I performed at the 1st edition of the Ukulele Festival KUKULELE. Aloha!

Doing a few shows in Portugal this month: Galeria LAR in Lagos, Festival Cidade PreOcupada in Montemor-o-Novo, and a show with special collaborations at CCOP in Porto in the line of the unpredictable cabarets I organized 2 years ago: with Jamba we did a bollywood inspired set colored with video projections by Martha Colburn, and with Filipe Silva I did slower ukulele songs with a lot of delay effects.

Next show will be in Lisbon at MAGA Sessions, 19th of July.

here is my portrait (with my Spanish braga) by the mighty, multi talented Olaf Ladousse