MOMO. Tum Tum Tum Tour

The Brazilian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Marcelo Frota, aka MOMO., comes to Gretchen with his eighth album “Tum Tum Tum”. With sophisticated hints of música popular brasileira (MPB), Tropicália, Afrobeat, folk rock, psychedelia and jazz, MOMO.'s music has always resisted categorisation, and “Tum Tum Tum” is no different. The album moves fluidly between moods and registers, from the warmth of crisp basslines to frenetic percussion, and from punchy horns to floaty strings, reflecting a career spent absorbing whatever was around him, whether that was fado in Lisbon, the jazz scene in London, or the psychedelic currents of 1970s Brazil that first shaped him.

“Tum Tum Tum”, recorded in South London, celebrates two decades of songwriting and features guest appearances from Brazilian bossa nova legend Marcos Valle and Smoke City’s Nina Miranda, as well as UK jazz trombonist Rosie Turton and his tight-knit band. This is a free-flowing, warm, expansive and fully assured album that exudes a playfulness and a sense of someone who is truly in their element and at peace when writing and recording. “Tum Tum Tum” reflects a career shaped by travel, collaboration and continuity — the title echoing the steady pulse that runs through MOMO.’s music.

"This album is a poetic eulogy, a wink, a memory to twenty years of crafting music," he says. "The repetition of craft, resilience and the beat of constant improvement and graft." This career has taken him across Brazil, Angola, the United States, Spain, Portugal and now the UK, and as MOMO. puts it, “Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve absorbed what was around me, connecting with different musical languages”. And not just musical languages, as the album is sung in Portuguese and English. “Tum Tum Tum” is warm, expansive and fully assured, the work of someone who has stayed close to his craft long enough for it to become instinctive and completely his own.

For this event we offer discounted tickets to give people with less money still access to culture. These quotas are limited and only available at TixforGigs. We trust in your self-assessment: If you can, please book standard tickets and leave the reduced tickets to those who have to save money at the moment.

Photo: Sophia Poole