By LARRY ROHTER

In the world of Brazilian music Otto occupies a place as unusual and unlikely as his name. For more than a decade he has been thought of as the guy who combines the textures of electronica with the traditional Africanderived rhythms he first heard growing up in a small town in the interior.

But as Otto prepares for the release of a new CD, his fourth, chillout, drum ‘n’ bass and lounge music seem to be far from his mind. Otto, known on his passport as Otto Maximiliano Pereira de Cordeiro Ferreira, hasn’t exactly renounced his recent past. Yet he makes it clear that he is now seeking a more organic sound.

“I started in electronica because it was easier, something you could do quickly and cheaply, and that made it the ideal path” for a solo artist just beginning his career, he said. “I mean, twothirds of global electronica was already Brazilian music anyway, so I always felt I could decode that and transform it into something else.”

Born in 1968, Otto recalls hearing fife-and-drum bands on the street as a child, remembers the rhythms he tried to pound out as he listened to his parents’ records of samba and Brazilian country music, and marvels at how he was energized by punk and its “do it yourself” credo.

“I’m completely a mixture, of nationalities and ethnicities,” he said. “I’m Dutch and Portuguese combined with Indian and mulatto, precisely the blend that made my country the incredible, inventive place it is.”

At the age of 21, though, Otto headed for Paris, trying to woo a girlfriend. He ended up playing percussion in the band of Raul de Souza, the Brazilian trombonist.

Returning to his home state of Pernambuco in northeast Brazil, Otto quickly became a part of the mangue bit movement, which fused home-grown rhythms like the maracatu, frevo and ciranda with the latest in imported computer and studio technology. He played percussion in both Nacao Zumbi and Mundo Livre S/A, the movement’s two most important bands, before releasing “Samba Pra Burro,” his first solo disc, in 1998. “Samba Pra Burro” was voted record of the year in many Brazilian polls, and also became an international hit on the dance floor and fashion runways.

Though it has been five years since the release of Otto’s last CD, he has been busy. He has become a good friend, for example, of the Turkish-Swedish saxophonist Ilhan Ersahin, leader of the New York trip-hop collective Wax Poetic, whose past collaborators include Norah Jones.

Otto toured for a while as one of two singers in Wax Poetic, performing alongside a Turkish female vocalist, and has also written songs with Mr. Ersahin and spent time with him in Istanbul.

Recently Otto has also been spending time in New York, hanging out at the NuBlu club. There, he said, he has been stimulated by his exposure to American musicians with roots in avantgarde jazz, like the composer and conductor Butch Morris and the drummer Kenny Wollesen.

Otto’s new CD reflects all those changes. It is called “Certa Manha Acordei de Sonhos Intranquilos,” or “One Morning I Awoke From Uneasy Dreams,” which is a paraphrase of the opening sentence of the Franz Kafka novella “Metamorphosis.”

“This record is about having choices and following the path you think is cool,” Otto said. “I’m 41 now and this is surely my most mature work, with a melancholy that mirrors my view of the state of the world. But my music remains receptive to all things. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s that music is obliged to be open.”


Otto has created a fusion of electronica with traditional Brazilian rhythms.