Tanto Tempo

Nice easy listening music in English / Portuguese. Always liked Portuguese.

- it's well-produced, and her voice is pleasant, but i don't think anything crazy of the melodies - sounds like it could be used for a cool hip hop sample or something

First Brazilian album, was actually good

Lovely music to get slowly drunk by. Very nice, I feel like I am in the lounge. 3.8

Bossa nova that’s kind of just bland and there. It’s a subgenre I’ve generally avoided and this album is precisely why

Bossa Nova is not my musical bailiwick by any measure, can't comment on whether this an important record in that genre or worthy of inclusion on this list as I've no other real references. This is a fine singer with an easy to listen to musical accompaniment. Hard to think I'd put this on again but it sounds ok... 5/10

I listened to this on loop for like 3 hours while I finished a book. 10/10 great reading music 3/5 fine music music

I’m not familiar enough with the genre to say if it’s really a “must hear” record and it’s so far outside my wheelhouse that it’s hard to say definitively. Everything is well played and the singing is really good. It is an interesting listen and I'm glad I listened, but it's not really something I'd circle back to.

There’s a good reason music like this has been relegated to elevators and nowhere else…

easy listening but not particularly engaging listening

Carnegie Hall has a neat article outlining 25 different genres of Latin music, just in case like Robert you've only heard of Bossa Nova.

So Nice Best Song: Sweet Thing Rating: 6/10 Stars: 3

It was nice, but I don’t feel familiar enough with the genre to have a nuanced take. Pleasant, but sounded like plenty that came before… I think! But that’s the problem. My best comparison is the Brazilian album Clube da Esquina, which I loved—it was able to reach across the cultural divide to me. I’m not saying that Gilberto needed to do that, just that I don’t feel equipped to have a real take on this record.

This one came out of no where and knocked me over. Didn't realize Astrud had a step daughter who also made beautiful music. 4 star first time listen through. 5 star the second. Listened to her for hours today.

I think my listening experience would have been elevated if I was listening to this in an intimate bar or restaurant…not the gym

Das war toll! Aktiv gehört oder auch einfach nebenbei beim Dinner

2,3 Highlights: August Day Song, Bananeira

Good if you’re at a suburban coffee shop in 1999

Pretty solid if quite forgettable unfortunately

I loved this album. It's a good update to Bossa Nova sound.

A little samba every now and then is always nice. This one in particular didn't leave a huge impression on me

Pleasant enough

Less Britpop more Bossa Nova this rules

Eh

61

Modern classic of 2000s downtempo mood music. Not groundbreaking by any means but love this album nonetheless

So relaxing. have never listened to a whole album of bossa nova and I guess this is as good as any to start with, given it's a little more modern. Realistically I would probably put this on again even though it wasn't the most mind blowing

This list needs less Bossa Nova and more Aldo Nova. 🤘😝🤘

Very Brazilian and her voice is great.

Not my thing, but sounded good...

I just dont get why this is on the list

Album 340. Tanto Tempo — Bebel Gilberto (1996) Great and chill bossa nova. Unfortunately I can't fully appreciate Portuguese songs, but English tracks are definitely good. 3/5 Liked: — Lonely — Close Your Eyes

Overall, Too ethereal and dreamy. Enjoyed some more than others, like Track 4, 9.

Vibey

So smooth, so very smooth. The voice on this record is absolutely beautiful and I could listen to it all day. The musicianship is also warm & mellow, complementing the vocals perfectly. I feel like this album is absolutely perfect for a quiet Sunday morning, or a sunset bar by the beach. It's super chill and very intoxicating - a very pleasant surprise.

Melting

I spent the first few minutes of *Tanto Tempo* wondering how on earth I had managed not to hear it in 2000. It seems almost absurdly well designed for the musical world I occupied around the turn of the century. This was the period when easy listening and exotica were being rehabilitated, when records that had once been dismissed as disposable lounge, soundtrack or library music were being pulled out of obscurity and listened to properly. I had embraced all of that. The Gert Wilden *Schulmädchen Report* compilation was not amusing to me merely because of where the music came from; I thought it was genuinely excellent. The Cardigans had found ways of bringing easy-listening textures into contemporary pop without making them a joke. Mike Flowers had demonstrated, rather more knowingly, that there was now a mass audience prepared to recognise the vocabulary. In Paris, Air were building *Moon Safari* out of analogue synths, softness, retro-futurism and a kind of immaculate weightlessness. Meanwhile trip-hop and dub had changed the way recorded sound itself could be treated. And running somewhere underneath all of this was bossa nova, one of the original sources of the cosmopolitan cool that so much of the 1990s was rediscovering. So when Bebel Gilberto arrives in 2000, João Gilberto's daughter making a contemporary record involving electronic producers, there is a sense in which the culture has spent years preparing the room for her. What surprised me was that *Tanto Tempo* never felt like a revival record. The opening immediately put me into a lovely loungy dreamscape, but almost at once there were details that made the historical relationship more complicated than simple recreation. Acoustic material seemed to have been looped, filtered and carefully restricted to particular areas of the frequency spectrum. Sounds were familiar but didn't quite occupy ordinary physical space. A guitar figure could feel less like somebody playing nearby than a memory of somebody playing, repeating itself with a slightly narcotic circularity. That was the point at which I started thinking less about revivalism and more about hauntology. The past on *Tanto Tempo* is rarely presented as something that can simply be restored. It comes back in fragments. A loop appears, disappears into electronics and returns. An acoustic instrument can be physically recognisable while behaving according to the logic of a sampler. Percussion is pushed backwards until it seems to be happening in another room. Gentle filter sweeps make whole sections of a track drift slightly in and out of focus. The filtering is particularly well judged. These are not the great theatrical sweeps that decorated house records, where opening the filter becomes an event in itself. Here the changes are much smaller. Frequencies recede and return just enough to create a mild sense of altered consciousness. The music never announces that something psychedelic is happening; it simply becomes a little less solid. By “August Day Song” I was thinking about Sean Lennon's *Into the Sun*. That comparison initially came from the slightly lo-fi surface, but became more specific as I listened. The guitar picking goes round in hypnotic circles and the understated duetting creates the impression of voices almost talking to one another across the stereo image. The harmonies are not simply pretty. There are slightly unusual intervals, little areas where consonance and dissonance rub together without becoming dramatic. The second voice changes the colour of the first rather than merely thickening it. There is a privacy to that sound which reminded me strongly of Lennon's album: voices, acoustic instruments and electronics forming a small interior world rather than a polished display. Then the title track arrived and essentially settled the matter. This is where Suba's production becomes extraordinary. Older Brazilian material seems to exist somewhere behind Gilberto, half submerged in a wash of strings and electronics. A sampled fragment establishes itself as a loop, falls away into a dreamy electronic middle ground and eventually surfaces again. It doesn't feel like a conventional reprise. It feels like remembering something. There are shimmering movements between minor and major, not big harmonic lifts so much as light briefly catching the arrangement from another angle. Gilberto's vocal remains completely unforced while an astonishing amount happens around her. The track is lush, but not thick. Hallucinatory, but never overwrought. Complex, but somehow presented as ease. Suba seems to be operating here in the role of producer-composer that dub and hip-hop had made increasingly visible: the recording itself becomes material for composition. The question is no longer simply what somebody played, but what can subsequently be done to that performance. A guitar phrase can be made circular. An old recording can be moved backwards in perspective. A percussion pattern can become atmosphere. The studio does not merely document a musical event; it determines the event. There is a point where dub and trip-hop cross inside this album. I joked while listening that the title track sounded like Portishead had opened a cocktail bar, but there is something serious beneath the joke. The resemblance isn't a matter of sounding like Portishead. It is the way depth, repetition, filtering and absence are used. The production understands that removing something can be as musically consequential as adding something. Bristol had developed that grammar using soul, reggae, hip-hop and old soundtrack material. Here a similar logic is being applied to Brazilian musical memory. What kept *Tanto Tempo* from becoming merely a beautiful production exercise was how readily it changed colour. “Sem Contenção” suddenly became brighter and quicker. It is gently danceable, brisk yet luxurious. The performance sounds acoustic, but also as though somebody has taken scissors to it: natural playing reorganised by electronic logic. Gilberto's stacked vocals in the middle are gorgeous. After the dreamier opening stretch, the song acts almost as a palate cleanser without breaking the atmosphere of the album. “Mais Feliz” has more of a played, organic feel, but with tiny electronic colours glinting at the top end. Again, nothing feels added merely to announce modernity. The electronic details simply change the air surrounding the musicians. By five tracks I realised that the album had not put the slightest foot wrong. I remember thinking that if the remaining half merely repeated this standard, five stars was already secure. “Alguém” then went somewhere else again. This felt like the least retro piece so far, perhaps the most obviously twenty-first-century. Rather than placing recognisable bossa inside contemporary production, it seemed to abstract bossa itself into an electronic rhythmic language. The track builds by accretion, elements gradually gathering around the pulse. The backing vocals are gorgeous wisps, heavily filtered and occupying precise little strips of the spectrum. That precision became one of the pleasures of the whole record. I kept noticing not simply what instruments were present, but where their frequencies had been allowed to live. It is a very controlled mix, yet it never feels clinical. Space has been carved so carefully that the music can become luxurious without becoming crowded. Then “So Nice (Summer Samba)” spins straight back towards the mid-1960s. It is delightfully kitsch. What I enjoyed was that the track doesn't apologise for this. Having spent the previous song abstracting bossa almost beyond period recognition, the album is quite happy to give us a recognisable slice of bright, immaculate lounge. Yet it still feels electronically constructed. The proportions are faithful to the older style without pretending that the intervening decades never happened. “Lonely” is almost the opposite: brief, spare and much less self-consciously retro. It comes and goes like a mood. What I saw of the translated lyrics was minimalist, with the idea of feeling somebody every day and imagining that they can hear you too. That small thought fitted something I was beginning to notice elsewhere in the record: a recurring preoccupation with solitude, absence and emotional connection across distance. This suddenly made the production choices feel emotionally relevant rather than merely beautiful. So much on *Tanto Tempo* is present and absent at the same time. Voices are near but spatially separated. Loops return like memories. Percussion comes through walls. Old recordings hover behind new ones. People in the lyrics seem to remain psychically close despite physical separation. The record's dreaminess is therefore not just decoration. Its sound continually places things slightly beyond reach. “Bananeira” then brings an entirely different kind of physical presence. A full band appears at the meeting point between jazz, funk and bossa. There is suddenly a lot going on and Gilberto's vocal changes role with it. Until this point I had mostly admired her softness: the breathiness, the phrasing, the way she can glide through a mix without asserting herself over it. Here she becomes almost athletic. The vocal lines are long and fast, with very precise diction despite the amount of rhythmic information around her. Her breath control is remarkable, but again it never sounds like technique being demonstrated for its own sake. She simply navigates the arrangement. The whole performance is busy underneath and effortless on the surface, which is probably as good a description as any of the album itself. And then “Samba e Amor” removes practically everything. Nylon-string acoustic guitar and Bebel Gilberto. Microphones and acoustics. That's more or less it. After so much discussion in my own head about filtering, sampling, stereo placement, dub space and producer-composition, this track was almost comically simple. It was also lovely. Its importance was not merely that it provided contrast. It demonstrated that Gilberto does not need electronic abstraction in order to make bossa convincing. She can simply inhabit the form. There is no sense that traditional material requires rescuing or modernising before she can engage with it. That changes how I hear the rest of the album. The electronics are not compensating for some imagined inadequacy in the source material. They are there because Gilberto and Suba are interested in what else can be done with it. She can move into the twenty-first century without disowning the form that brought her there. The original album closes with “Close Your Eyes”, where Suba returns to a much bigger and busier construction. There is the massed percussion of samba, but not the visceral air-moving experience of a percussion section standing in front of you. The drums are pushed backwards and made circular. They become a lovely loop, almost a rhythmic weather system drifting in from somewhere beyond the room. Gilberto floats above it. That image of music drifting in on the ether ended up feeling appropriate for the whole album. So many of these performances begin with recognisably human materials and then become slightly disembodied through repetition, filtering and spatial placement. I listened to the 25th-anniversary edition, which adds “No Return” after the original ending. It is a genuinely worthwhile bonus rather than something rescued because an anniversary edition required another track. I didn't know while listening that it was a Kinks cover. Going back to the Kinks original afterwards, the bossa character is already there. Ray Davies had written something with that light, gently swaying movement in it, so Gilberto doesn't have to impose an alien style on the song. What she does is sound more completely at home inside it. The composition seems to settle naturally into a musical language that it had already been half speaking. I compared the result to Soft Cell's “Tainted Love”. Not because the recordings resemble one another, and not because the source has been obliterated, but because the new version feels so thoroughly owned by the performer that the category of “cover version” stops being terribly useful while you're listening. Somewhere during the album I started calling all of this trip-bossa. I don't particularly want to defend that as a genre, but it describes enough of what I heard to be useful: bossa nova with dub depth, trip-hop loop logic, electronic colour and a recurring sensation that the music is being dreamt rather than straightforwardly performed. But even that doesn't quite account for the range of *Tanto Tempo*. It can be kitsch without becoming trivial, extremely tasteful without becoming wallpaper, electronically abstract and then almost completely acoustic, gently danceable one minute and suspended in a narcotic haze the next. The tastefulness is important because that word is often used as faint praise. Here it means something else. It means precision. Knowing when another instrument is unnecessary. Knowing how far backwards to push a sound. Knowing when a filter sweep should be almost imperceptible. Knowing when the cleverest production decision is to leave a singer and a guitar alone. And throughout all of this, Bebel Gilberto remains extraordinarily calm at the centre. There were long stretches where I scarcely cared what she was singing. She could have been reading the nutritional information from a yoghurt carton and I would still have wanted to hear the way she formed the sounds. Her voice functions simultaneously as language, melody and texture without ever losing its human presence. This album triggered an unusual amount of lateral thinking for me. It sent me back to *Into the Sun*, *Moon Safari*, Portishead, the exotica revival, records I discovered in Rough Trade, the strange aesthetics of the turn of the century and the way certain pieces of music seem to create not merely an arrangement but an altered physical environment around the listener. That is probably why my strongest response to *Tanto Tempo* is still disbelief that it managed to miss me. This was my musical neighbourhood. I was there. And somehow it took twenty-six years for us to meet.

This is smooth. Her voice is just sexy as hell and the way they use the stereo channels pushes that aspect. It's a very chill with your partner album. Solid album and is now in my library.

Женщина приятная

This is exactly the kind of saccharine, easy-listening shit my grandparents listened to, and as such it didn’t remind me of Rio de Janeiro, waving palm trees and white sandy beaches. This reminded me of Benidorm, high rise three star hotels, and Belly Buster Breakfasts with a pint of Carling for 5 Euro at 9am.

Love that samba and bossa nova sound. I own this album

Honestly pretty forgettable

I bet I’d like it more if i could understand any of the lyrics.

Would never have heard this , if it weren't for this list, and my playlist is all the better for it

Just a good time on the bossa nova groove

A lovely album, chill and happy

The repeating closing your eyes to not be alone is very creepy. But introducing me to Red Ilusivii was entirely worth it. Nice up tempo bossa nova. Guitar was particularly good

Musik som bomull, med ett lugnt stadigt bossa sväng. Rösten en brasiliansk Lill Lindfors, eller om det är tvärtom. Men det är inte musik som tar tag i mig, perfekt bakgrund, men inget som engagerar. En stark trea.

Ok to have on in the background. Enjoyable enough

i love bossa nova i was so happy to hear this. not only is it great working music but it's very *enjoyable* working music that actually makes me feel so relaxed so peaceful so lovely.

Not sure why?

Pretty nice listen. Good background music mostly, very chill.

It was fine. Not the best bossa nova. Just gone.

Very pleasant, enjoyed listening to it.

Deilig album, dette likte jeg. Fantastisk stemme med vill vokalkontroll, og tight band. Er generelt svak for god bossanova, og Tanto Tempo og So Nice er nice. Enkelte låter er litt lite minneverdige og siste låt er småtynn, men ikke nok til å trekke ned fra 4ern.

Jeg er svak for bossa nova

Ikke min sjanger, så dårlig utgangspunkt. Dette var lange 40 min.

Spansk hadde kanskje vippet denne opp én, men fysj for et språk

5/10

The best Bowie.

Ihan mahtavaa, että listalla pitkästä aikaa muutakin kuin englanninkielistä populaarimusiikkia. 4/5

Yesterday I got São Paulo Confessions by Suba... this is extremely annoying as I can't handle two Suba produced albums back to back, especially not after the 2 star SPC. This, however, was a pleasant bossa nova offering.

Yeah…I don’t do a lot of Bossanova, but this one is a pleasant listen. Sweet female vocals, English and Spanish, smooth dancey melodies

I didn’t understand a single word she was saying but I could imagine this as lobby music in a doctor’s office

been listening to this a few times, and it is so absolutely goated to enjoy while youre just hanging out doing nothing. kinda bossa nova-ey i think? really chill. really enjoyed it.

Blijkbaar moet je Gilberto heten om goede muziek te maken in Brazilië met Astrud, Joao en nu dus Bebel. Het is ook nog eens allemaal directe familie als in vrouw van Joao, Joao zelf en dus dochter. Maar benieuwd, over het algemeen bevalt Bossa Nova me heel erg goed en vind ik de muziek van de Gilberto's erg prettig. Het is helaas echt klote weer, net niet wat je wilt bij een album als dit. Merk dat ik het begin wat minder mijn aandacht bij het album heb, de tweede helft voelt wat sterker? Daarnaast valt de productie op, die is door Suba die zelf ook een album in de lijst heeft staan, en is grotendeels 'traditioneel' Bossa Nova. Maar af en toe, zoals op Mais Feliz word de productie een stuk psychedelischer en merk je dat Suba achter de knoppen zit. Moet wel zeggen dat de meer traditionele nummers mijn voorkeur hebben. Ik vind de productie wel echt vet, maar merk dat ik toch gewoon liever traditionele bossa nova luister dan de spacey triphop van bijvoorbeeld Alguém. Alles bij elkaar is dit zeker niet mijn favoriete bossa nova album dat ik heb leren kennen via deze lijst. Het is prima, maar ik kan wel begrijpen waarom het er op staat door de productie! FAVO: So nice, Bananeira, Close your eyes

new to me - cool & groovy Brazilian bossa nova

Easy listening slop.

7/10

Bossa Nova at the turn of the millennium. Picked up influences of hip-hop and jazz-fusion. Cool album made by a nepo baby.

The music was dull and the vocals were okay. The vocals would have been better if I spoke Portuguese.

Que voz da Bebel e que arranjos fodas, uma mistura de musicas calmas e sambas agitados, toda a estrutura do álbum é maravilhosa. Produção impecável, letras profundas e ao mesmo simples, a mistura de Inglês e Português é muito bem feita e deixa a harmonia do álbum ainda mais linda e sólida.

I have no frame of reference for what counts as good bossa nova music. And this album wasn't bad, but it also didn't impress me as anything special. Its decent background music for a dinner party or other sophisticated social gathering. But it's not going to find its way to any of my daily listening playlists.

- Some smooth bossa nova groove...makes me just want to drink a nice glass of wine while relaxing in a chill cafe. Gilberto's voice is calming. - Prefer the more explicitly bossa nova tracks (most notably "August Day Song" and "So Nice." Less interested in the couple of tracks that feel more "modern"...which means they now feel straight out of the mid-90s.

I had the chance to see Bebel Gilberto perform live in 2006. She possesses a unique charisma and truly embodies Brazilian music. On this album—her most successful one—she plays a style of electronic bossa nova. Sung in Portuguese, almost all the tracks have a completely relaxed feel, capturing the often simple yet beautiful life in Brazil. While the music has occasional jazzy undertones, this doesn't detract from the experience in the slightest. Overall, it is a very enjoyable album to listen to. However, it falls outside mainstream listening habits—unless, of course, you are open to world music in general.

oh hell yeah

Perfectly pleasant

4. 5

Great vibe, I’m a big fan of this album

Sometimes I really question what the criteria is for being an album you have to hear before you die. Anyway, they speak Portuguese in Brazil.

Brazilians yield great albums like any other exporting quality commodity. Really smooth album.

This one was nice - standouts were close your eyes and bananeira

Sounds like bossa nova to me.

This album genuinely calmed me down when I was stressed out at work. It came on and I felt calmer right away, her voice is incredible and very soothing. And the music is so relaxing, I felt like I was transported to a slow summer day in Italy by a river. I had no idea what she was singing but it felt like she was saying everything is going to be alright. Which sounds corny but this album really helped me feel calm. Will definitely listen to this again

Nice.

I mean, it's solid, it's just not the classic that her dads was.

Smooth bossa vibes on a rainy morning when I listened to this. Close Your Eyes is a real jam.

I'm giving this album the same review I gave Getz/Gilberto. But this one gets an extra star because it's so damn sexy. (And Mari C from Beastie Boys fame produced & mixed So Nice (Summer Samba)) If I were into Bossa Nova, I'd be into this album. It's beautiful, atmospheric and serene. Quite lovely.

Another example of an album I never would've found on my own. Great vibes.

Makes me feel like I'm working a consultant job and sitting by the window at a cafe drinking a cappuccino. I don't know what that feeling is called.

#238/1001 🇧🇷 I was first introduced to this album by a colleague who burnt me a copy and its fair to say that i had never taken the time to listen to thid genre before. I've come back to it plenty of times of the years and always found it a really enjoyable listen. Best Tracks: Tanto Tempo, Alguem, Bananeira.

pleasant. inoffensive. not a big enough step from bossa to warrant its inclusion in this list. rather listen to her dad or elis instead

I wouldn't call it life changing, but it is lovely.

Like it 3/5

A thoroughly enjoyable album, very smooth. She has a soothing voice that matches the music perfectly. There wasn't a single track that stood out, either positively or negatively. It's not something I would consider buying a copy of, but that shouldn't detract from it in anyway.

I enjoyed this quite a bit. Gave me some Sade vibes. Could envision a really groovy collab with Sting or ghost Frank Sinatra, or ghost Sammy Davis Jr, or ghost Tony Bennett, or ghost... well you get the point. Fantastic for my morning walk.

Enjoyable

Bossa nova vibes are fun

Reminded me of the gilz and Gilberto samba record from the 50s or 60s that I liked

Really enjoyed this. The subtle electronic elements give the album an extra, distinctive layer that I don't think I've heard in bossa nova before (although I'm far from an expert). Bebel Gilberto's voice is really soothing too, which makes for a really pleasant listen Highlights: Bananaeira, Sem Contnção, Tanto Tempo