TRUFALDINOS

In May 2021, with the easing of restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, drummer Narciso “Mandrake” Pederneiras gathered around him a group of fifteen musicians and singers with the epic aim of “shaking the structures of global pop music” and “breaking the standards of Western song form" through a mix of progressive rock, jazz, Brazilian funk and classical music. He named the project D'Arak and presented the group with a series of song ideas for the band's still-to-be-made first album, Mambeibi. Without any source of income for actually paying the musicians, Narciso guaranteed their commitment to the project with a promise: He had many contacts in the musical world, as well as a list of venues eager to book the band as soon as they created a repertoire, making shure they would become widely famous in a very short time.

If Narciso's magnetic personality was enough to get the team together, his poor drumming skills, inconsistent musical direction and his refusal to provide details about his contacts paved way to a growing discontent among his teammates. Over the next six months, all musicians abandoned ship except for guitarist Altamiro "Dash" Moreno and bassist Jonas Adisa. As a trio, they remained together for a few more months, when Narciso became increasingly unpredictable. He didn't show up to rehearsals or, when he did, was often drunk or stoned, barely able to perform his role in even the most basic way.

Despite Narciso's erratic behavior, Dash and Jonas kept making music together, compensating for the lack of other musicians with loops and pre-recorded tracks. The duo's creative chemistry was good from the beginning, but the needed qualities for a great partnership were also there: they were both ego-free and didn't want to limit themselves to specific genres.

Their fruitful partnership came at a good time, as both had had a quite wearing music life until then.

Dash had a lot of success with the Christian band Os Beatos in the early 2000s, but the group's traumatic end and, shortly afterwards, his turbulent divorce from gospel singer Solange Mastrangelo shook his relation with both fame and religion. The depression and alcohol dependence that followed kept him from music for more than a decade.

Jonas Adisa played in live bands since he was a teenager, having his fifteen minutes of fame twice (hence half an hour in the spotlight). In 2002, with the satirical rock band Strongonofres, and in 2008, with the unusual reggae-samba group Smokey Cuddle, both with modest and short-lived success. The fiasco of this last venture and the end of the record labels' old business model led him back to the bar circuit, not without some bitterness. In 2021, he joined D’Arak and met Dash, at first without realizing that he was a former Beato.

In June 2022, days after borrowing money from Dash, "Mandrake" performed his final act of illusionism, vanishing without a trace.

His replacement happened by chance: When Jonas was playing in a bar, an old friend came to greet him. It was accountant Arnaldo Delongas, who had already provided services for Smokey Cuddle. After learning that his friend was looking for a drummer “for this very loose and unpretentious thing that was going on”, Arnaldo said he knew someone. They agreed on a day for an audition, when Delongas himself showed up holding the drumsticks. To Jonas' surprise, the accountant knew how to play. Delongas' decisive feature, however, was his totally uninteresting personality and lack of charisma. “After a certain age, we get tired of intense and unstable people”, declared Jonas about the drummer.

To bury the ill-fated D'Arak once and for all, they changed the band's name to Trufaldinos. It was Arnaldo's suggestion, a reference to a commedia dell'arte character, who appears both in opera and in Brazilian street carnival blocks (where he's better known as Harlequin). The irreverent figure who transits between both refined and popular genres seemed a good representation for the trios's broad sound spectrum.

When they realized that nowadays almost no one  knows what a trufaldino is and how difficult it is to even pronounce the name in some languages, it was already too late, once their first single, Eu não moro mais aqui (Portuguese for "I don't live here anymore"), had already been released.