As For the Future’s self-titled/self-produced debut album will be released on Friday, June 14th on their own As For the Future Music imprint. The record will be available on digital/streaming, LP, and Deluxe Edition CD featuring nine bonus tracks (alternate mixes, dub versions, and edits).
As For the Future is a new Brazilian music-inspired group based in NYC. Drawing on a variety of styles – bossa nova, samba, MPB (Música popular brasileira) – and combining them with rock, jazz, folk, and soul influences, the group mates their distinctive sound with vibrant, original lyrics.
Started by songwriter/musician David Nagler, As For the Future features vocalist Alexia Bomtempo, Mauro Refosco (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Atoms for Peace), and David Lizmi (Elysian Fields), among others. The group took shape during the summer of 2020, when over 15 different musicians contributed remotely to the recording of new material. These sessions resulted in a full-length album comprised of 10 songs that are wry (“Koan for the Music Business”), political (“The Mob”), comprehensive (“Encyclopedia of Songs”), and evocative (“Childlike”).
Taking their name from a novel by the great Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, and residing somewhere between a band and a collective (a Tropicália-influenced New Pornographers?), As For the Future is an eclectic musical experience that embodies exploration and discovery, and never looks back.
Today Glide is excited to offer an exclusive premiere of this impressive debut. Drawing inspiration from Brazilian artists like Chico Buarque, Gal Costa, and Gilberto Gil as well as an indie rock sensibility, the album features a worldly collection of songs that are as lyrically clever as they as musically complex. It’s fascinating to hear that this album was recorded remotely because it have a rich full band sound that pulls you into its sonic playground. According to David Nagler, As For the Future was based on an idea: What if a variety of writers, musicians, and singers created new music inspired by the music of Brazil? Songs would be informed by the rhythmic richness, lyrical poetry, and overall beauty of this music, with themes that draw upon current emotional, social, and political issues. The result is an album that beckons repeat listens and is equally suited for a relaxing night as well as your next lively cocktail party.
Nagler says, “The songs were written so each musician has space to add their own individual contributions, and the vocalists would create a communal energy. No matter what words you hear, the music’s primary motive is joy, even in the face of disappointments, contradictions, and discrimination. This is music with many messages.”
Listen to the album and read David Nagler’s commentary on a handful of songs below…
“Encyclopedia of Songs”
The first song written with As For the Future in mind, our original drummer Brian Kantor posted a video of himself playing a samba pattern on Facebook. The song’s structure came about after I added guitar on top of a looped edit of the audio. The goal of the album recording was to emulate a carnival samba, accomplished with the help of Mauro Refosco’s multiple traditional percussion instruments and a number of group vocalists.
Songwriters and composers often talk about the sudden moments of inspiration that fuel the creative process, but just as often these days, they’ll speak about the work that goes into it, usually involving one of the most tedious human activities imaginable: waiting. Songs are always hiding in plain sight. Do you go out and find them or do you wait for them to come to you?
“Koan for the Music Business”
With 60,000 new tracks being added to Spotify every day, it’s no wonder that musicians feel deflated about the hopes of being heard. My coping mechanism? Write a Zen Buddhist song about the music industry, full of questions everyone is asking, starting with: “If a record drops in a forest, does anyone hear it?”
“The Mob”
“The Mob” was written not long after white supremacists descended on Charlottesville, VA in 2017. Then, during the recording of the song, insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Two years later, Brazil had its own coup attempt. Life imitates art imitates life.
Don’t be fooled by the chill vibes. The recording also features Ryan Keberle’s violent trombone trio, Ryan Ross Smith’s unsettling modular synths, and, of course, Alexia Bomtempo’s stunningly silky lead vocal, singing a horrific narrative that keeps on playing out in real life.
“Letters on the Line”
A song about starting from scratch, which we’ve all had to do quite a lot of over the last four years! The song opens with rototom fills from percussionist Mauro Refosco, a nod to his performance of “Burning Down the House” in David Byrne’s “American Utopia” on Broadway.
