Branko Aims for the World on His Debut Album ‘Atlas’
For 10 years, Portugal’s Branko has pumped Kuduro-spiced breakbeats into the ears of electro fans as cofounder and beat-builder of Buraka Som Sistema. The group won awards, accolades, and the love of thousands in its stellar decade of service. But now, it’s time for a little break.
“It was never really a band that we planned to last for 10 years,” Branko says. “We need to be objective about where the music is going. Is the music that we were making still essential? Where else can we take it? What’s the next step?”
Buraka hasn’t called a definitive quits, but Branko has already taken his next step. Atlas—his debut album out now on his own tastemaker, global electronic imprint, Enchufada—is 11 tracks of borderless brilliance, recorded in five weeks across five international destinations, fusing the many sounds and flavors of the world into one groovy, bouncy masterpiece. It’s Branko’s official solo debut outside of Buraka Som Sistema, but with 20 collaborators, including Mr. Carmack, DJ Sliink and Princess Nokia, he hardly did it alone.
“After working on so many albums with a band, I thought I was going to want less people,” he laughs. “I thought it was just going to be me by myself in the studio, but it was kind of the opposite.”
Inspiration for Atlas struck as Branko readied two-hour mixes for BBC Radio 1’s Residency show. The program gives DJs a monthly on-air residency wherein each selector shares their personal voice and essential soundscape.
“It was the first moment that I had to put everything together and realized more and more that this whole global electronic scene was actually just one language that speaks through different variations,” he says. “It’s still the same attitude and posture. All these different kinds of music are still coming from the same place—the whole do-it-yourself, in front of a computer, working on a cracked version of Fruity Loops on a beat that sounds different from everything else.”
This overwhelming sense of unity had always been at the center of his artistic message, but the chance to travel and collaborate with so many international voices on a fresh solo project became a relentless goal. While Buraka toured the world in celebration of 10 years together, Branko stole time for whirlwind recordings in New York City, São Paulo, Cape Town, Amsterdam, and his hometown of Lisbon.
“I was mostly looking for cities that had interesting diversity—‘melting pots,’ in terms of different cultures, immigrants and everything,” he says. “I was looking for places where people had embraced that and then, in the process of that, created something new.”
Many of Branko’s Atlas collaborators were artists he’d never met. Some of the sessions were planned and booked months in advance. Some came about spontaneously after nights spent partying and getting to know one another.
“It’s different when you actually go to a city and you engage in conversation about a specific local scene,” he says. “You get to know so much and understand why everything exists.”
Each hand in the pot left an indelible impression on his creative process, and through these sessions, his unifying theory of dance grew stronger. He finished the job alone in Lisbon, putting together the bits and pieces and merging each voice into a soaring chorus of vibe.
“I’m really proud of the songs where there are different pieces to them, stuff that was made in different cities, because that, for me, was the ultimate goal,” Branko says. “A song like ‘Let Me Go,’ for example—the whole song started with me and Mr. Carmack and Nonku Phiri in Cape Town. Then I went to New York and I recorded stings on it, and then I came to Lisbon and I worked it a lot more. I just kept adding more information and more references to it until it felt like a really complete song. [I started ‘On Top’] in Amsterdam with Zanillya; then I took it to Cape Town, and we did a verse with Ruffest. Then I was able to record a vocal choir of 13 girls, and stuff like that. It went all over the place, and it was really cool to make and just watch it gain different sides. I think putting that kind of puzzle together was my happiest moment of the whole thing.”
He then hit the road once more, this time sharing the Atlas sound in a series of funky DJ sets, along with classic clips of the genres that helped inspire it. The mixes were wild, frenzied and constantly changing, but isn’t that just like the world of dance music?
“I chose to do DJ sets because I wanted things to be as unpredictable as the process of making the album was,” he says. “I really felt like they were my best sets ever.”
Atlas from Branko is available now on Enchufada.
Kat Bein is a citizen of the world who lives on the internet. Follow her on Twitter.
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