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Totonho’s, Sabotador de Satelite is filled with songs of people spreading out into the solar system and causing all the same problems we currently do on Earth, only on a grander scale: interplanetary traffic jams, lack of basic sanitation on the moon and the story of a heartbroken second-hand spaceship salesman, all provide fuel for his latest release. It’s a wry, tragic-comic statement on man’s situation and pre-disposition to wreak havoc wherever he is, delivered on backdrop of leftfield tropicalismo hip hop and funk.

“My mother used to say that ‘everybody wants to be good, but there’s a part missing on the moon.’ So I always thought I’d start a band to play on the moon.”

“I made a kind of futuristic vision about human relationships in the next 25 years, because planet earth is totally fucked up so we need to move into space,” he told me when asked about the inspiration behind the album, and his choice of where to set the stories, which could have easily found context in an existing earthly setting, “Man is a hacker; the human essence is that of a hacker. We need to invade everything and use it, and then move.”

Totonho’s career has included work as a writer, social commentator, musician, educator, producer and broadcaster. I asked him how he would describe himself for the uninitiated: “Me? I am an inquieto brasileiro and a soundman and I speak against injustices in a hard but funny way. My music is Brazilian roots music, with help from electronics and an experimental approach.”

Totonho knew music would be his path from an early age, and said he had always, from being very young, thought of himself as a musician: “My mother used to say that ‘everybody wants to be good, but there’s a part missing on the moon.’ So I always thought I’d start a band to play on the moon. I always wanted to go far, but I fell in love with education, so I forgot music for fifteen years when I was working in education, but the education brought me back to music and I started to work with the kids in the street, who are very creative people.”

This community work with Projecto Ex-Cola brought him into contact with young people, helping to provide them with a route off the streets and out of addiction through developing skills in music production, radio and cultural development, and he hosts a community radio show in addition to commitments as a musician, to discuss local issues, and showcase musicians.

“At some point, I realized that the songs were more creative than the short story, so the short story served as an auxiliary rocket to move the album.”

He said he had been influenced heavily by experimental musicians from the town in which he grew up, including experimental music group Jaguaribecarne, as well as more widely known experimentalists such as Stockhausen: “When I heard him the first time I realized that to sing a Brazilian roots chant over a Stockhausen song would be quite amazing and shocking. The Brazilian roots singers from the north also shaped me a lot, especially because I was a kid. They gave me a lot of dreams.”

Sabador de Satelite is Totonho’s second release on Trama after 2003’s self-titled release and he told me the route to realising it was a circuitous one: “The album started because of a short story that I wrote, so it’s a theme album. But I was under the impression that I could not make a theme album, so I did the short story first. At some point, I realized that the songs were more creative than the short story, so the short story served as an auxiliary rocket to move the album.

“This record is an integral part of my career, it isn’t a side project, it’s a natural step from the first one. I worked with Kassin and Berna (aka Monoral) who are two of the most talented guys in the whole world. Kassin got the project +2 with Moreno Veloso and Domenico, also it is part of Orquestra Imperial. Berna plays with Orquestra and does lots of soundtracks. It’s just amazing. Miranda also helped with the production, he did the first record with me and signed me to Trama. It was a natural thing pick those guys… they’re friends.”

Sabatodor de Satelite is out now on Trama records.