« Le plus beau disque du moment » Vox Pop
Yonlu revealed just a fraction of his talent for experimentalism and a capacity to create delicate melancholy melodies before taking his own life at age 16, leaving behind works that are something between Badly Drawn Boy, Tortoise and Nick Drake. 16 year-old Vinicius Gageiro Marques, who was very active in various online communities under the screen name Yonlu, lived in the Southwestern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. He was a bright inquisitive young man, who spoke French and wrote and spoke English without ever taking classes (he learned by watching TV).
Vinicius also had an impressive musical aptitude. He demonstrated a knowledge and a critical sense in his analysis of pop music, always written in English and available on various websites. And he recorded hundreds of songs, playing guitars, bass, drums and sound effects in one of the rooms in his house he transformed into a studio. After his death, his father discovered some of the precious sounds he had stored away -- the majority were his own songs.
The music came with enthusiastic commentary made by Internet fans from around the world. Yoñlu, almost without any real friends in real life, was a popular virtual artist with fans from England, Scotland, Belgium, Canada and North Africa. Yoñlu is a disc that should have been a post card, but transformed itself into a testament. It s the celebration of a life with the talent for a banquet that stopped at the appetizer.
It’s a showcase of sound and poetry of the kisses that Vinicius never gave, the dreams he never realized, the anguishes he couldn t get over, his passion for art and especially for music, like he expressed in the letter he wrote to his parents: ''I believe that the right cadence and harmony at the right moments can awaken any sentiment, including happiness in the most somber moments.''