• Track Listing

2010 release. Joyce combines her wonderfully expressive swoop and soar vocals with special guest bossa legend Joao Donato's peerless pulsating piano and warmly-crafted rhythms. Injecting pure-quality jazz into bossa nova, old-school Brazilian samba and laid back Cuban vibes, Aquarius is intricate yet endlessly listenable. Blending breezy ease and elegant sophistication with Donato's unique stop/start groove this is a special roots session that sounds utterly fresh. Featuring true classics alongside stunning new compositions this gorgeous recording is testament to Joyce's standing as Brazil's greatest female singer-songwriter and celebrated international artist. Together, Joyce and Donato have produced their finest modern work. Aquarius radiates all the funky spirit of the crossover Brazilian jazz of '70s Brazil. Both Joyce and Donato have included new versions of their most famous tracks - "Feminina" and "Amazonas" respectively - while new tracks including the jumping "No Fundo Do Mar" and addictive "Xangô É de Baê" are true standouts. Joyce uses that voice in wonderful solo and memorable duet with Donato's golden vocal. Far Out Recording's reissue of Joyce, Nana Vasconcelos and Mauricio Maestro's 1976 lost classic Vision's Of Dawn (FARO 138LP) caught the imagination of the world's press and crossed over to become a cult record with beautiful ease in 2009 giving Joyce's profile a huge lift. With four decades of recording behind her Aquarius is Joyce's sixth album on the Far Out Recordings imprint. A Brazilian musician and composer of almost mythical proportions, João Donato is one of the surviving - and still prospering - members of a generation that produced Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Luiz Eça and many other masters associated with the heyday of bossa nova. The impish pianist, known for his deliberate, single-note musings and catchy compositions is one of very few artists whose sound defines bossa.