Out of Curitiba, Brazil is 7-piece ska band Abraskadabra who released one of our favorite albums of the year with Welcome. That was their second full-length & it dropped on February 20th, 2018. Now, the group has revealed that they will be releasing two songs, that were cut from the record, on August 28th.
Abraskadabra, as funny as the name of the band is, plays loud, fast, melodic, ska-punk music full of horns with a live energy heard on all 13 tracks of their sophomore release. When the band was ready to record their album in Brazil, they had two choices: 1.) To record in a traditional way inside a recording studio, or 2.) Rent a house and record it with Trosso (sax/vocals) who has recorded, mixed and mastered the bands previous releases.
The group choose the second option and when we interviewed the band back in March, they told us: “So we stayed in that house for 14 days, with no deadlines, no ‘hurry ups,’ just us, a lot of 
beer and other little things. We could record day and night without the pressure of being in a studio. We managed to make two video-clips over there, ‘Heavy Hitters’ and ‘The Dream.’ How we recorded 15 songs (2 of them were left behind) and 2 video-clips in 14 days is beyond my knowledge, but we did it!”
[Related: Interview – Abraskadabra]
The 2 songs that were left behind were “Kansas City Shuffle” and “To The Stars.” It’s always a curious thing when songs get left off what ends up being a fantastic start-to-finish album. When discussing these tracks back in March, the band was between releasing the songs and leaving them behind for good. Because the album was so good, we’re relieved to hear that these songs will finally be heard by the public as soon as August 28th.
Abraskadabra has been around since 2003, but didn’t drop their first album, Grandma Nancy’s Old School Garden, until 2012. In 2016, their ska cover of No Use For A Name’s “Not Your Savior” made it onto Fat Wreck Chords documentary, A Fat Wreck. While the group has been around since 2003, they’ve only released 2 full length records. As they alluded to The Pier, recording in Brazil is no easy task and neither is being a ska-punk band in a country with very little momentum for the genre, yet here they are putting out some of today’s most enjoyable ska-punk.
The band consists of drummer, Maka, guitarist/vocalist Buga, sax/vocalist Trosso, trombone by Mamão, trumpet by JP, bassist Japa along with Du on vocals & guitar.
“We were high school pals that loved punk-rock, hardcore and ska,” the band tells The Pier. “Some of us were already playing instruments and we decided to get together to make some noise. But we wanted to do something different than the average punk-rock bands in town. And we were lucky enough to find some old trumpets and trombones left by the marching band of our school. So we kind of stole them and began to mix everything up.”
The group has only toured the U.S. twice, with their most recent trip coming this past April. No word on when the band will return, but its our hope one of these state-side labels will pick them up and do us all a favor by bringing them to tour the states regularly.
Watch: Abraskadabra – “The Dream”
Related Links:
Abraskadabra Website
Abraskadabra Facebook
Follow: @AbraSkaDabra
Article By: Mike Patti
Photo By: David Norris
Watch: Abraskadabra – “Heavy Hitters”
Watch: Abraskadabra – “Not Your Savior” (No Use For A Name Cover)