When I think of Brazil, samba and bossa nova are the genres that come to mind. And they are very pleasant – the sort of music for a carnival or for a cocktail bar or an Ibiza chill out zone. But what if I want something rougher? Where do I go?
Well, it turns out Brazilian funk is a thing (funk carioca, favela funk) – quite different from seventies funk, and not quite like the post-punk avant funk I’ve been digging into recently. A lot of it features boastful men surrounded by curvaceous women twerking vigorously. But not all. Here’s Leo Justi (Heavy Baile) with an example of Passinho dancing.
I’ll post more in the comments – please join me with anything Brazilian that’s a bit rough and stubbly. There’s also Mangue Bit, Tecno brega, and many other genres that aren’t the big two.
This one woke up my Monday morning
And here’s some of that jolly twerking – to a baroque flute melody – I’m sure Bach would approve
It’s from the UK and a cover of Jorge Ben’s Taj Mahal the song Rod Stewart ripped off for Do Ya Think I’m Sexy. I think it can be described as rough and stubby:
SunlightSquare
They know how to party up in the north-east of Brazil.
This song, Countryside Party, was an enormous hit for Gal Costa and is now a standard that many have sung.
I’ve never looked at a translation of the lyrics before today.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/festa-do-interior-countryside-party.html
More fool me!
I was reminded of this
She’s got an impressive voice – really powerful.
Sao Paulo’s finest Bixiga 70. The 70 in their name is a tribute to Fela Kuti’s Africa 70 and yes, they are an Afrobeat band.
The most impressive contribution so far. I like this, and the review in the peerless Colours and Sounds suggests there’s more good stuff where that comes from
https://soundsandcolours.com/articles/brazil/bixiga-70-iii-29688/
well, you did ask…I wouldn’t be surprised if this lot were one of the most commercially successful bands to have ever come out of Brazil, and this one in particular is a colossal banger
they started to use more traditional tribal elements on later records (I’d never seen this video before. It is not what I expected)
Anyway, like you’re all going to watch a third clip after I’ve made you sit through those two, how about some Nação Zumbi, of whom Wikipedia said ” In their songs they experiment with mixing of rock, punk, funk, hip hop, soul, Pernambuco’s regional rhythms and Brazilian traditional music, with heavy use of percussion instruments.” I have one album of theirs, but none of the songs seem to be on YT, so this is the first one that appears when you search. It”s very good.
and do you remember when people tried to make bailefunk a thing around 2004? I was very surprised to put on a compilation and hear the unmistakable synth riff from Headhunter front and centre
I served my time in the NWOBHM ranks, listening dutifully to Maiden, Saxon, Priest, Gillan and Dio – it didn’t do much for me then, and Sepultura doesn’t do much for me now – but I’m happy for it to be on the thread – meets the criteria.
Nação Zumbi were pioneers of Mangue Bit – the genre I referenced in the OP. Here with Chico Science, who tragically died in a car accident in 1997:
Colours and Sounds led me to that info, of course. A treasure trove to mine, even if I’m not sure there are any extant groups in the genre. This is almost exactly the sort of thing I was looking for when I started researching – something akin to the plurality of Colombia’s music scene.
I hadn’t heard of bailefunk before last week when a Brazilian colleague referred to rough sounding favella funk. Sadly, most of what I found since then has been commercial consumerist/gangster product – apart from the OP link. Bonde do Tigrão sounds good, but as with so many things I am a decade and a half behind the times.
More Mangue bit. Of the founders, I can’t tell if Nação Zumbi are still going, but the other originators, Mundo Livre S/A still seem to be a going concern, and kicking out a gloriously groovy racket:
Here are two music collage sets that are the closest things to PItchfork/Quietus I found. I think they are great, but they would probably go down like cups of cold sick with most AWers
From Mbé, a mix of field recordings, collage, and spoken and sung word, the samples include songs from Xingu Indians and Central African Pygmies; speeches by Black feminist activists, free jazz; accordions, avant-garde sound art and Candomblé drums
From Chelpa Ferro, a multimedia trio from Rio de Janeiro – abstract electronics and collage from a huge sounds database collected from over 26 years on the road, containing excerpts from installations, films and documentaries, radio ads, hospital recordings, low and high quality audios, among other sounds that are freely interpreted, edited, twisted, chopped and filtered, forming a universe that communicates the heat from Rio de Janeiro’s streets.
That great showman, Carlinhos Brown, can be relied upon to get quite a party started.
The same can be said for Timbalade, the percussion ensemble from Bahia, which he helped to found.
Although it’s credited as Sergio Mendes, this is really Carlinhos Brown, with a local English teacher dralfted in to take care of the vocals
Sergio Mendes – What Is This
“A local English teacher”! Hilarious. It’s a stonker of a track anyway with a bit of aOnce ina Lifetime vibe.
When you mentioned Axé Music, I realsed that I would have difficulty labelling a track as Axé. It seems like I am not alone. It’s a mixture of so many different elements.
This article helped a little.
https://www.aventuradobrasil.com/blog/brazilian-rhythms-axe-music/
For the moment I will understand it a being the kind of uptempo, Carnival, party music produced by Ivete Sangalo and Daniela “Forhorn” Mercury.
Or these guys, Asa de Aguia. They play Saturday night party music which involves a lot of waving your hands in the air.
I saw Daniela Mercury at the Festival Hall and she was stupendous.
At home in front of her fans she must be truly extraordinary.
I am certainly going for far more mainstream artists. To put it mildly. Variety is the spice of AW life.
Seu Jorge is another extraordinary performer who can really raise the roof.
Love the images of the catering staff bopping in the kitchen
Here he is doing a Tiny Desk session.
I first heard the wonderfully charismatic Margareth Menezes from Salvador when she was the support act for David Byrne. (She also sang in his band).
She’s very popular in Bahia.
We must have some of the many Brazilian rap artists. This one by Marcelo D2 fades in slowly..
And now with Seu Jorge in a very entertaining video.
I just stumbled across this list of some of the newer artists.
https://theculturetrip.com/south-america/brazil/articles/top-15-brazilian-funk-songs-to-add-to-your-playlist-right-now/
This track by Cidinho & Doca promotes peace in the favelas.
“I only want to be happy, to walk calmly in the favela where I was born.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pD8k2zaLqk
Good to see some rap among the axé music – a bit close to samba for my liking, and that Daniele Mercury is like a foghorn…
I’d seen the funk playlist – the clip you posted is practically the only one that isn’t about shagging. Even the one by the group claiming “their songs are different because they are respectful to women”. Yeah, right.
Some electronica now, from Suba, the yugoslav-born producer who became a major player in Brazil but died tragically in a fire.
Cibelle was one of the many Brazilian artists that worked with him.
I’m putting down a marker for Suba. That first track was enjoyable, the second one was sublime, like a Brazilian Kirsty McGee. I loved the instrumentation and the laconic vocals that rolled, then dropped from her lips. And the video was as creative as that rap one above.
You see, you can extend beyond the mainstream, KFD! Keep going, it’s bringing up wonders!
I am very glad that I am sometimes on target and find stuff that hits the spot for you. @Salwarpe.
Rascal that I am, the moment your back is turned, I’m indulging in sugary strings, melodramatic lyrics and sensual saxophone.
Today I’ve been listening to artists with a very long career under their belts: Hermeto Pascual, Pau Brasil and Azymuth.
Back to Gal Costa for a moment, and a song from her album India, which I find jagged and unsettling. I think it’s in an odd time signature.
It was written by Caetano Veloso. Here is the title track from his album, Uns, which is from the same period.
Uns means ” The” when talking about plural masculine nouns. We are losing a lot due to not speaking Portuguese, but one case see the lyrics are one long list.
Uns vão
Uns tão
Uns são
Uns dão
Uns não
Uns hão de
Uns pés
Uns mãos
Uns cabeça
Uns só coração
Uns amam
Uns andam
Uns avançam
Uns também
Uns cem
Uns sem
Uns vêm
Uns têm
Uns nada têm
Uns mal
Uns bem
Uns nada além
Nunca estão todos
Uns bichos
Uns deuses
Uns azuis
Uns quase iguais
Uns menos
Uns mais
Uns médios
Uns por demais
Uns masculinos
Uns femininos
Uns assim
Uns meus
Uns teus
Uns ateus
Uns filhos de Deus
Uns dizem fim
Uns dizem sim
E não há outros
I think ‘sometimes’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, KFD…
That Gal Costa is sufficiently buoyant, rhythmic and weird to allow me to forgive you for dumping a load of prog and hippy shit down below, with a very long text.
In all fairness, I think it doesn’t matter what you post – I doubt anyone apart from you, Alias and Mike_H opens this backwater of a thread, and I’m probably the only fool who listens to at least a bit of each clip posted. Although I have a daft idea Chiz pops in for a frug every now and then, because he can’t help himself.
Here’s some guitar murdering – I dare you to listen to it.
A brother and a sister who are enormous figures in modern Brazilian music; Caetano Veloso and Maria Bethania.
Just to be perverse, first here is the great Caetano singing a Mexican song in Spanish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1emgUdD3_pE
And what magic he spins.
Next performing with Maria Gadu.
Now, one of his most famous songs, Voce e linda , with Gilberto Gil and Ivete Sangalo
That audience and his two fellow artists are spellbound.
Now time for his sis.
I’d never seen this clip before today. The way that her face lights up.
And here she is a few years later, looking and sounding like a character from a Greek tragedy.
Not surpring that she is so sombre.
That song, Chalice is from the years of the dictatorship. Here it is translated into English.
Gil and Veloso went into exile in London during that time. And played the Isle of Wight in 1969.
Caetano Veloso shared a flat in London with Terry Reid for a while around that time.
Wrote this song here.
That first song sung by Caetono Veloso is magical, transfixing – the gentleness of his voice against the harmonics and whispers of the cello, the beat of the guitar and the deep throb of the bass. Apparently it’s a very well known scene from Hable con ella (2002):
https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2020/pop-music-in-film/caetano-veloso-seduces-us-in-almodovars-hable-con-ella-2002/
What is the Brazilian musical genre which is most popular internationally in 2021?
I’m guessing, but I am fairly certain that it is MPB: Música popular brasileira.
Many of the albums on Rolling Stone Brazil’s list of the 100 greatest Brazilian albums fall under this style.
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_dos_100_maiores_discos_da_m%C3%BAsica_brasileira_pela_Rolling_Stone_Brasil
David Byrne had no small role in this. Quite a few AWers have a copy of his wonderful Beleza Tropical sampler which was packed with MPB stars like Ceatano, Gilberto, Maria Bethania, Jorge Ben Jor etc.
And I must now confess: most of it si not rough and stubby.
But here are a couple of bands that perhaps are. At least a little.
Banda Black Rio – pioneers of Brazilian funk.
Funk como le gusta – A big band from Sao Paolo who blended all manner of styles.
Here’s a number I am sure you will all know!
I was rather surprised about this.
https://www.last.fm/tag/bahia/artists
Not exactly a major work of research: it’s all cut and paste, But all the same, there are an enormous number of musicians who come from Bahia.
This delightfully flakey article is a very informative, enjoyable read about music from Bahia.
https://www.matrixonline.net/salvador-bahia-brazil/the-essential-music-of-bahia/
Irregular Afterword contributor @sparrowroberts is the man behind Matrixonline. It’s a vast resource.
This deserves a place here. Beautiful voice beautifully recorded.
That is magnificent. She was discovered, singing in churches in Salvador by Caetano Veloso, as you probably know.
Oddly enough, he cropped up this morning when I was reading about Ilê Aiyê, the oldest Afro-Brazilian Carnival “block” and a very important organisation for the local community in Salvador.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il%C3%AA_Aiy%C3%AA
That led to this clip:
Time for a musical stroll around Salvador and meeting with Ilê Aiyê.
That Virginia Rodrigues song is magnificent, as KFD says – sublime. The Ilê Aiyê track is very impressive as well. Lots of good music – thanks guys! It took a bit of time to get this thread going, but it’s cooking nicely now.
Glad you are enjoying it, Sal. Me too. There are some interesting new doors opening up.
Time to visit Sao Paolo…
Also from Sao Paulo, Kiko Dinucci former guitarist it Afro punk band jazz group Meta Meta
Olode
I liked Kiko a lot. I’m keen to hear his old band too.
He led me to the dreamy underwater sounds of Mãeana.
This is a singer for me! I’m hooked.
How do you say “out to lunch” in Portuguese??
I bet there are few doors as interesting as Pablo’s. Brazil has such an extraordinary diversity of music. Quite overwhelming.
Or Liniker
Liniker really has got something.
Shame Brazil is not in Europe. Pabllo could win Eurovision hands down. Energetically outrageous.
He made me think of Ney Matogrosso.
An outrageously camp showman who has a very distinctive voice and can deliver a song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_LzQ_ZPv6M
Slightly different from the usual fare on the AW!
And here, to my great surprise, is Ney with Nacao Zumbi.
Well, this thread, is full of surprises! Then again, Ney is clearly something of a national hero.
When I think about Brazil, many musical genres come to mind but Prog is not one of them.
Having had a listen to Cidadão Instigado this evening, I think I’ll need to rethink that.
They are very tight and have excellent arrangements.
This will tell you a lttle about the band (its reads as though it has been mangled by Google Translate)
Despite the language barrier, you should give them a listen. I enjoyed their music no end.
And the you can try some rather lovely Brazilian hippý music. From 1976 (they were a bit behind).It is rather lovely.
British and American Metal bands seemingly do very well in Brazil.
Not Samba. Not BossaNova.
Hermeto Pascoal takes a dip with his musicians.
That’s my YT clip of the week, Mike.
Howevr I suspect Hermeto ( born in 1936 and still going strong) won’t be playing in any Swedish lakes in the next few months.
I’ve been listening to a few tracks over breakfast. He’s a remarkable musician.
That reminded me that there were a lot of Brazilian jazz bands making waves internationally, back in the day.
Like Flora Purim and Airto Moreiera
And Azymuth
As a vinyl die hard, I finally succumbed and bought a CD player in the early 90s because the album Ritual Beating System by Bahia Black was only being released on CD and cassette. Bahia Black were a kind of super group with Carlinhos Brown, Olodum, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Bernie Worrell. Here’s a track from that album:
They certainly were a supergroup! I read on Wiki that Bill Laswell was a driving force behind that album.
Carlinhos had a busy year internationally in 1992. He also contributed to that Sergio Mendes album that you mentioned previously.
He first came onto my radar when he toured Europe about 20 years ago. Talk about a showman!
Each generation of jazz musicians seems to make a journey to Brazil to seek inspiration.
Here’s an article from 1989 when once again Brazil was making waves in the USA
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/09/11/beyond-the-bossa-nova/be9d6f5e-8168-404a-9d23-0ba76fd7e431/
It mentions the Som da Gente jazz record label, which by the look of things is still going strong.
https://www.facebook.com/AcervoSomdaGente/
Here’s one of their acts, Pau Brasil.
And an article about their history which is also a kind of summary of the history of jazz in Brazil.
http://grupopaubrasil.com/en/history/
I dug out the Bahia Black album this morning and listened to it again. I wonder if it’s unique in that two of the musicians Larry Wright and David Chapman are credited with playing buckets and no other “instrument”!
Hhhhhhhmm..I thought. “The Bahian Bucket must take years of practice to master!!”
The review by David Bertrand Wilson quoted on this page put me straight.
http://www.silent-watcher.net/billlaswell/discography/b/ritualbeatingsystem.html
“I’ll grant, though, that Brown’s percussion duet with teenage NYC street musician Larry Wright (on plastic buckets) is a blast (“Uma Viagem Del Baldes De Larry Wright”)”
Here’s some more info
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wright_(street_drummer)
Larry in action.
Very easy to imagine that Larry and Carlinhos really “hit it off”.
Really impressive.
I got an email saying I’d been mentioned by Lemonhope. And I see plenty of Kaisfatdad in this string. A string which is way up my alley…so I’m going to chime in here and there. Back in my life in NYC I did Carlinhos Brown’s contract and music licensing for this record.
! Respect!
Nah… My friend Verna Gillis was handling Brown’s stuff outside of Brazil. This gig came up and she wanted to save money. I had a royalty recovery business and was/am not a lawyer…but I did have boiler plate contracts around. So I cobbled one together for this. Music licensing I knew how to do, because that was part of what we did. Brown never met Herbie or Wayne…
Tribalistas were a Brazilian “supergroup”: Carlinhos Brown, Marisa Monte and Arnaldo Antunes. And very good they were too. And wildly popular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smwj7ISnwXM
The penny dropped for me today that I’ve seen Arnaldo live in another supergroup. Along with Edgard Scandurra and Toumani Diabate. I of course was at the gig because of my man from Mali.
The two Brazilians went out and the three of them recorded an album in Mali. What a remarkable meeting of minds that was,
Here’s Arnaldo with his first real band, Titas, on the beach in Rio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCxSuV7EaQk
Like a kind of Brazilian Split Enz!
Alias introduced us to Kiko Dinucci, and mentioned his previous band Metá Metá.
Here they are.
A trio with singer Juçara Marçal and composer and saxophonist Thiago França lançam.
I wanted to hear more of her voice.
Here she is with the Abana Quintet
That somehow led to the beach. Not Ipanema but Jaguaribe in Pernambuco, the home state of Lia de Itamaracá. An unpolished diamond and local hero.
That led to a spot of Googling that brought me to this site:
https://blackbraziltoday.com/the-black-pearl-of-brazilian-popular-music/.
Lots to browse around, The article on Daude is excellent.
Let’s give her a listen.
Wonderfully vivacious.
And keen to explore the Great Brazilian Songbook.
From Melbourne, a new and rather promising name: Hiatus Kaiyote.
Hang on! Melbourne is not in South America, you howl
No but these Aussies travelled to Brazil to work on this track with legendary produce and song-writer Arthur, Voracai.
He’s worked with many bif´g names but had a very up and down career and spent as much time writing advertising jingles as songs.
Seems a very charming chap.
Here’s a track from a tribute concert of his music that was done in LA which he conducted. Wonderful!
.
It’s time to forget Brazil and head for Bedfordshire.
But before I do, here’s an insanely catchy piece of rather psychedelic, 60s folk from Bahia.
Os Tincaos with Canto e Danço pra Curar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb4Ojd8OCaw
Aha! The legendary Tincoãs, from Cachoeira, Bahia! The last of the Tincoãs, Mateus Aleluia, is alive and well and magnificent! Lives in Salvador but spends time in Angola, where he has an apartment. He was raised in the jeje candomblé line, in the Ventura “house” of candomblé just outside of Cachoeira. The idea behind Os Tincoãs, after Mateus joined anyway (they started off singing boleros) was to sing music based in candomblé, in the style of Black American spirituals. I got this from Mateus himself…we went to Europe together in 2007 for a series of shows, together with several other blazingly brilliant artists.
Paul Simon singing in Portuguese! Not something you hear every day.
I was reading about the making of the Rhythmn of the Saints
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/14/arts/pop-paul-simon-s-journey-to-brazil-and-beyond.html
It tells how Paul became friends with the great singer-songwriter Milton Nascimento who introduced him to many musicians.
Here they are on stage together. The second song is Scarborough Fair.
What a noisy audience!!
Here’s MIlton in 1976 doing one of his own songs with Chico Buarque. What a wonderfully transcendent voice he has!
This is unexpected from Dionne Warwick. Apparently she moved to Brazil where she recorded the Duke Ellington classic Caravan, accompanied by an Afro Bloc.
That was a find and a half @Alias. My initial surprise was that she sung rather well in Portuguese.
I was even more surprised to discover that she permanently re-located to Brazil in about 1990.
Here’s a long interview with her from 2002 un which she talks about that and much else.
https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2002/jul/14/features.review27
And here’s a piece with more information about her Aquarela de Brazil album, on the occasion of some extra tracks being released on an EP: Tropical Love.
https://theseconddisc.com/2016/04/05/finder-lost-love-dionne-warwick-releases-tropical-love-vaults/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZnb3osv-S8
All extremely interesting stuff.
Swedish pop singer, Lisa Nilsson, is another artist who decamped to Brazil for several months in 2006 to recharge her musical batteries and returned home with an album of Brazilian classics sung in Swedish.
I was trying to find out a little more about Dionne’s life in Brazil and stumbled across this SoulJazz compilation of Brazilian artists who relocated to the US in the 1970s. Their compilations are always a joy, as you know @Alias.
The blurb here is well worth a read. Some of them we have mentioned here, others are new names to me.
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/sjr/product/brazil-usa-70
This should get your Sunday off to a lively start….
On the topic of Brazilians who have achieved fame and fortune abroad, the late, great percussionist, Nana Vascencolos deserves a mention.
What a remarkable man! I knew about his work with Pat Matheny and Jan Garbarek, but i realise that was just the tip of the iceberg.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/mar/21/nana-vasconcelos-obituary
From the ECM album he did with Egberto Gismonti.
Brazilian percussion and Same joik joined together by jazz sax. Garbarek has a broad-ranging musical imagination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfPoEt7lUeg
Mônica Vasconcelos is London-based. Seen her a couple of times on the jazz nights at the pub in Colindale. Here with her usual accompanists on guitar and piano. And a cellist,
…and here’s her most recent project.
Thanks for this, Mike. Not a fan of the smooth sounds of the first clip, high quality as it is, but these tracks are really impressive, particularly ‘Radical Kindness’
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/7LdND
So thank you for the mention @Lemonhope! I just recently permanently closed down my record shop in Salvador, after running it from 2005 to 2020. The shop was dedicated to difficult to find Brazilian music. The Matrix is basically an extension of the shop…the name inspired by Salvador trumpet player João Teoria, with whom I was drinking cerveja one evening, and who said (translating): “There ought to be a matrix where you can move through musicians and find them.” That was EXACTLY what I was doing and so I went for it.
This matrix is at http://www.matrixonline.net
It’s a labyrinth, and there are various ways to find artists…but one can go to Categories at the top (or in the “hamburger” if one is on mobile) and find “Brazil”, and go from there…
Thanks for stopping by this thread, sparrowroberts. My initial, stumbling post has drawn out a lot of interesting and varied music, as I hoped it would. In preparing to post, I’d done my Afterword research and saw you’d made some great interventions in the past, so was hoping you might appear.
It looks like your matrix is an expert guide to the Brazilian genres that Wikipedia and other sources reference without really explaining.
There’s a “radio” in there, which I’m proud to say was mentioned in a Guardian article as one of 10 of the best music radio stations in the world. Granted, it was one journalist’s opinion, but I was and am grateful.
AND!…Magnificent Raymundo Sodré’s record has just been released by Ropeadope Records. It’s chulas and baiões and ijexá. The link below is to a pre-release…
https://ropeadope.com/news/2021/7/9/new-music-raymundo-sodr
Great to have you here @sparrowroberts. i really enjoyed your piece on Bahia which was full of great quotes. .
I liked this one in particular.
“Their (particularly Caetano and Gil) defining musical movement was Tropicália, which in some respects had more to do with San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury than with Bahia (and with bell-bottoms than with the fedoras worn then and now by the chuleiros)…”
I must go back to the Matrix and explore a little more.
I’d forgotten how fun the afterword can be! I have @Lemonhope to thank for bringing me back to the fold! And I have nothing against Caetano & Gil doing and having done whatever they want to do…but I moved to Brazil (almost 30 years ago) to discover BRAZILIAN music. Maria Bethânia moved that way, singing the sambas-de-roda of the region she grew up in (she’s from Santo Amaro, at the north end of the ‘Bay of All Saints’). She had a party several years ago and the “band” was João do Boi (John of the Ox) and his group. That’s kind of like having a party and Robert Johnson plays for you, after it’s been established that he is who he is (although he remains poor). In NYC in the ’80s I would haunt the record shops looking for Brazilian music, and it was always the same people, who had of course been signed to major labels. I built this “matrix” because if it had existed back then, then I would have been able to discover the artists that in lieu of this I had to travel to Brazil, learn Portuguese, etc, and still dig deep to discover. And it’s not only Brazilian artists…there are musicians et al all over the planet who are for all practical purposes, undiscoverable to people not in their immediate area. Like the dark side of the moon until recently: there, but unknowable.
I’m doubly thankful to Mike for posting the Monica Vasconcelos soundcloud above, as when her songs finished, they were followed by this ‘Crash’
Extraordinary shouty vocals accompanied by jagged punchy rhythms, yet simultaneously beautifully tuneful and danceable – like punk rock sung pitch perfect with professional percussion. Definitely worth exploring, and it turns out that Juçara Marçal is a wonderful musician with a beautiful voice and several musical projects to her name (Vésper Vocal, A Barca and Metá Metá).
Jucara is one of the big discoveries of this thread. And all thanks to @Alias posting that song by her ex-bandmate from Meta Meta, Kiko Dinucci.
Here is an hour’s concert from 2014. Kiko is also playing.
She played at Womad, UK in 2017
https://www.alamy.com/jucara-marcal-of-meta-meta-performing-at-the-womad-festival-charlton-image152498025.html
And here is Meta Meta from 2013.
Whoops. Double clippage! Sorry about that, KFD. I guess at 3am in the morning I’m not eternally awake to check before posting. Still, great minds, eh?
Here she is, in glorious 5 voiced polyphony, in Vesper Vocal
Stupendous! I really like that and want to know more about them.
Here’s a little background info
https://www.womex.com/virtual/cooperativa_de/vesper_vocal
One more from them.
Here’s a little something, I’m not sure if it’s rougher in the sense that @salwarpe was talking about. It was filmed by the BBC pre-pandemic, for their Huey Morgan’s Latin Music Adventure series. The BBC people & Huey showed up kind of late (they’d been filming out on a boat) to this street party I’d organized so they could at least show something of where samba comes from. It’s too bad Huey didn’t mention the principals by name (João do Boi & Raymundo Sodré), and that they’re barely seen here, etc. etc. etc. … but we all had a greeeeeaaaaat time! Do I just stick the youtube URL in here? That’s what I’m going to try…
Well @sparrowroberts, the Matrix radio station is a treat.
It led me to Renaissance man Guga Stroeter
http://www.gugastroeter.com.br/english/Paginas/01%20English.html
Intersting bloke!
He led me to this.
There you go! First song, by Noel Rosa, says “A estrela d’alva no céu desponta”…The morning star rises in the heavens… “Estrela Dalva” (which is the same thing as “estrela d’alva) is how Raymundo Sodré referred to his recently deceased wife, Dalva, in the opening to his record Girassóis de Van Gogh.
I can see myself getting lost in Matrix Radio and not getting out again.
Me too, Mike. And I think I’d pretty OK about that too!
Here are the two musicians who played in Sparrow’s street party.
João do Boi
and Raymundo Sodré.
Wonderfully, rootsy Bahian stuff, I could just drift away to.
I found that Guardian article which mentioned Sparrow’s radio station and it’s a fine read.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/apr/17/10-best-music-radio-station-around-world
Anyone remember this excellent track that he posted a few years back? It is samba so it shouldn’t really be posted on this thread, but it is such a fine, colourful postcard from Brazil. that I am going to break the rules.
And here’a a longer piece about the Matrix project.
https://medium.com/@sparrow_roberts/the-matrix-of-fabulous-discoveries-b4c2262f42bb
I’ve been lost in Salvador all morning on the Matrix.
That KFD – he don’t want to go school, he just want to break the rules
https://rave.dj/4sk633LewmVI6w
This little beauty from Criolo doesn’t break the rules.
Roughly translated: There ain’t no love in the heart of Sao Paulo