Boogarins Fernando “Dino” Almeida and Benke Ferraz began playing music together as teenagers in the central Brazilian city of Goiânia – creating psychedelic pop in their parents’ gardens, filtering their country’s rich musical history through a very modern lens. By the time the group’s home-recorded debut LP, ‘As Plantas Que Curam’ (2013), was released worldwide, the band had recruited a proper rhythm section and were developing a name around Goiânia. Soon after, the group was booking regular gigs in São Paulo and across the country. Ultimately, with glowing praise from critics abroad (Chicago Tribune #9 Album of 2013) and a growing international audience, 2014 saw Boogarins circling the globe continually – headlining clubs and playing festivals from Austin to London, Paris to Madrid, New York to San Francisco, Santiago to Mexico City, playing alongside many great artists around the world.
The band’s second album, Manual (2015) — was nominated for a Latin Grammy (Best Rock Album, Portuguese Language) and was launched in London, inspiring MOJO Magazine to award the group its MOJO Rising distinction. The Spain-recorded tracks feature a solidified four-piece with bassist Raphael Vaz and drummer Hans Castro. Celebrated Brazilian drummer Ynaiã Benthroldo stepped in for the live duties and the four would eventually hole up in a house next to Austin’s SPACE studios for most of a summer, recording new material in between a several-week Austin club residency, East and West Coast US Tours, and Iberian Peninsula tour, as well as live broadcasts on KUTX, KEXP and NPR’s World Cafe.
While continuously touring and recording, highlighted by global festival appearances in Central Park, Lisbon’s Rock in Rio, São Paulo’s Lollapalooza and Vancouver’s LEVITATION, amongst others, 2017 ramped up the group’s recorded output with a snapshot of their increasingly intricate live performances on ‘Desvio Onírico – Live 2016’. The band then continued to dig in further just a few months later with the surprise EP drop ‘Lá Vem a Morte’, a dark and challenging investigation into emotional and sonic incongruity. The acclaimed new material carried the band — once again — across hemispheres, culminating in a breakthrough live appearance in their home country of Brazil at the world’s largest musical festival — Rock in Rio.
Forever relentless, Boogarins are kicking off this Spring 2018 in the UK supporting the much-celebrated Tune-yards. A short Iberian tour follows before heading to the US for their debut performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival alongside the launch of their eagerly-awaited third LP.
MOJO Rising!
»Brazilian Boogarins subtly update the Tropicália template by taking in acid-fried indie rock on Manual.« (Mojo Magazine, February 2016)
»There is a Brazilian psychedelic-rock tradition, for sure. But Boogarins doesn’t sound beholden to the documents of it. It’s not a band of formalists doing homage work… “Manual” connect(s) generally to plenty of things: to the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows,” recorded nearly exactly 50 years ago, and then to early Pink Floyd, and out into 1990s post rock and the current international neo-psychedelic map of bands like Dungen and Temples.« (Ben Ratliff, The New York Times, April 2016)
»Boogarins have blossomed into a worldwide force beyond their native Brazil.« (Rudi Greenberg, The Washington Post, July 2016)
»Even if you don’t speak the language, the message is clear: This is an album that is begging you to confront your cynical ways and reconcile them with the realities of the world around you, whether those truths are ‘good’ or ‚bad’.« (Consequence of Sound, 2017)