A friend who stood by you through the worst days turns up to tell you he’s leaving, and when he goes he leaves a hole in the sky, “sem lua e sem estrela”, without moon or star. On “Outra Amizade,” A Panda do Sol sing about losing a friend as losing another gift: something life gave them and has now taken away. They carry the goodbye on samba percussion and a wordless “lalaya” chorus, and they filmed it live under a circus tent in Berlin.
The band came together in German city in 2016 around guitarist, singer and songwriter Félix Huet, and most of its players come from France and Brazil. They write their own sambas in samba de raiz, the roots style, and bring each musician’s background into the arrangements, from French chanson to the biguine of the French Caribbean and New Orleans brass. Their last album, Homenagem, released by Sungroove Records in 2022, paid tribute to eight of samba’s founding composers. They switched each song from a major key to a minor one, or the other way round.
“Outra Amizade” is the first single from Nossa Poesia, an album of their own songs in Portuguese and French on AJABU! Records, a label based between Berlin and Malmö. Huet sings and plays guitar beside co-singer and percussionist Héléna Fontaine. Behind them are Yannick Maentele on trumpet, Oscar Ferdinand on clarinet and Antonio Silóniz on tenor saxophone, three more percussionists in Juca Junior, Camila Berrio and Alex Rigaud, and a seven-voice choir. The track was recorded in Berlin and mixed in São Paulo by Caê Rolfsen of Ori Lab, who has worked with Liniker e os Caramelows and Alessandra Leão.
Iman Kay shot the video in 2025 at Cabaret Chaotik, a cabaret show staged in the tent of Zirkus Mond. That circus pitches its big top beside the S-Bahn tracks in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg. Performers Maia Friend and Tania Giovo appear in the video, and the setting suits a band whose live shows already borrow from the circus.
Listen to “Outra Amizade” HERE, and keep track of A Panda do Sol and the arrival of Nossa Poesia on the band’s official website