With the intent of bringing a contemporary look over one of the most important Shakespeare’s plays, Richard III, the Brazilian theatre group Companhia Bufomecânica stupefied the audience at the Roundhouse during the past weekend, evoking aerial skills, multimedia devices, symbolic objects and stunning costumes. The performance is part of the on-going World Shakespeare Festival 2012.

An actor brandishing a hunting weapon and a wild boar’s head – the personal device of the English King Richard III and an important symbol of the political affiliation during the War of the Roses – saluted the Roundhouse’s viewers, followed by drums, dance and clothes’ stripping off on stage, leaving clear Companhia Bufomecânica’s intention: to provoke.

An invite to be part of The World Shakespeare Festival, especially in England, is a challenge so far as Shakespeare’s plays have been brilliantly presented in so many ways, by so many countries and by the best theatre’s actors worldwide. Being innovative is a risk as the performance may look amateur, cliché or even seem overacted; on the other hand it is undoubtedly avant-garde. In an attempt to bring this challenge to the audience, the Brazilian theatre company invoked meta-theatricality in a twist that probably impressed as many as it annoyed others.

The production carries a contemporary aesthetic that sometimes reminds the spectators of Sofia Coppola’s modern Marie Antoinette, in a mix of modern musical themes, including rock, drums and a melancholic accordion;carnivalesque outfits and multimedia projection on the background.

The use of aerial skills maximised the drama and the audience’s involvement in the plot, providing a forefront reading over the Shakespeare’s play catching the audience’s eye with its rhythm during the whole performance. The Companhia Bufomecânica made use of this feature brilliantly in a mesmerizing show, presenting remarkable scenes, especially in Margaret’s prophetic curses, in the dialog in the second act between Richard III and his mother, in which she cursed his future as a king and begged for his death; and most significantly in the parade of the ghosts that visits Richard and Richmond the night before the battle.

The murder of the Duke of Clarence in the tower was beautifully acted and designed. Clarence, portrayed by a woman, sat precariously balanced on a ladder lowered from the grid and suspended from two central points, in which the murderers – after a very interesting Shakespearean debate about consciousness – danced and bounced while listening to Clarence’s begging. The Duke’s death, falling from around twelve feet of the ground was a successful example of how theatre and circus can match perfectly well.

In a memorable scene, also evoking meta-theatricality, the talented interpreter of the spectrum of Queen Margaret, widow of Henry IV, carries her “own dead” and, at the same time, creates a dialogue with the audience, making the spectators think about how challenging a Shakespeare’s play can be – as far as how exaggerated the interpretation must be, how an actor must act and how can Shakespeare be reinterpreted.

Taking risks, the Companhia Bufomecânica scored some points and lost others during its path, as when it made the option of using five actors to play Richard III, making it difficult to establish a relation of complicity between the villain Richard III and the audience, distancing the character of the anti-hero stereotype proposed by Shakespeare. The best interpretation of Richard III was saved to the end, surprisingly, by a woman.

The Brazilian play probably didn’t please Greeks and Trojans, but it was certainly an original take on the story. The fusion between circus and theatre was remarkable and so was the use of multimedia features, offering a fresh approach over this Machiavellian story about power-seeking.

By Bruna Gala

Batida is the alias of Pedro Coquenão, a half-Angolan, half-Portuguese producer, and this is his debut album. It’s an album that focuses on his Angolan side, both taking inspiration from the styles of 1970s Angola and modern-day kuduro, of which Buraka Som Sistema have grown to become one of the biggest names. Crucially, Buraka’s music largely ignores their cultural heritage, something that Batida has noted: “I was finding lots of new urban electronic stuff, but not much that was embracing the traditional elements.”

Remedying this situation, Batida features samples of tracks from the late 60s and 70s alongside electronic beats, while also marrying the counter culture of that time (when Angola was under colonial rule) with the present day (this is a country that has only had one democratic election in the past 20 years), expressed in the contributions of MCs Sacerdote and Dama Ivone from Circuito Feixado, Bob da Rage Sense and Ikonoklasta from Luanda’s music scene, as well as Lisbon’s Ngongo.

The album is at it’s best when bringing both modern and traditional influences to the forefront, as on “Alegria”, a track which begins with a thudding house beat until snippets of melody begin to break through and a tropical guitar starts playing to stop-start rhythms; or possible album highlight “Yumbala”, a track that packs all the effervescence of high-life or soca but with a highly-energised vocal from Dama Ivone (not a million miles away from an Angolan version of Bomba Estéreo’s Liliana Saumet).

“Saudade” features one of the most recognisable hip-hop deliveries on the album, from Bob da Rage Sense, with Batida cutting up a simple guitar motif in the background, occasionally splurting out snippets of a simple Angolan ballad. It’s a track that manages to appear quite simple, while at the same time possessing a really highly-developed level of production. This is music that you will not grow tired of easily. The least arresting moments occur when the music creeps too close to standard house or dance music formulas, “Bazuka (Quem Me Rusgou)” and “Tribalismo” being the worst culprits of this, though due to the album’s restlessness this rarely feels like a problem.

It’s also this restlessness which gives the album the impression of a sound system mixtape, with tracks constantly morphing into new shapes, and vocalists and samples coming and going at free will. This suits the album well, giving it the feel of a document of Angolan culture, a night out in Luanda whenever the mood takes you.

In the same way that Soundway Records have been bringing 1960s, 70s and 80s Colombian and African music to life over the years, I think it’s fair to say that they have now done exactly the same with present-day Angolan music and culture.

By Russ Slater

Batida will be released on 26th March by Soundway Records

facebook.com/batida

At first listen, cumbia can sound deceptively simplistic, its spacious bass lines anchoring the music to a two-step cadence; but on a closer listen, one can hear all kinds of hidden elements creeping into the mix: hand drums that originated in Africa meld with the flauta de millo, an Andean reed flute (replaced by the clarinet on later recordings). As revealed in the notes of this excellent double-disc compilation, cumbia evolved along the Magdalena River as a unique blend of African, indigenous and European elements, becoming cumbia proper in the port city of Barranquilla; a related sound called porro, from a non-coastal region, is a somewhat slower cousin that places melodic emphasis on swinging brass blasts.

Colombia’s recording industry has a truly rich history, and compiler Will ‘Quantic’ Holland has set out to make the most of it on this compelling set, presenting “the history of Colombian cumbia and porro as told by the phonograph”. Astute listeners will already be familiar with Quantic’s inventive productions, but some may not know that he has spent the last four years in Colombia, trawling the nation for its remaining musical artefacts. The startling and eminently pleasing results are displayed here in 55 crucial tracks culled from extremely rare 78s and 45s, and select, long-forgotten LP tracks.

The gems are truly plentiful. On disc one, Conjunto Los Rumberos’ “Cumbia del Puerto” is a wild instrumental romp based around raging accordion lines and frantic scraper accents; Ritmos del Caribe’s “La Fullera” places shrill accordion riffs above occasional ragtime piano bursts; and Guillermo Munoz’s “Cumbia de Todos” begins with a terrific percussive jam. Elsewhere, Los Indigenas’ “Sangre Goajira” has delightful vocal harmony, and Alberto Pacheco’s “Sembrando Café” is a deliriously hyped-up ode to the cultivation of the coffee bean. Similarly, on disc two, Betopey celebrates cumbia’s universal appeal on “Cumbia del Carnaval”; Jaime Simanca’s “Cumbia Negra” highlights the African roots of the form; and La Cumbia Soldeña’s “Tambo, Tambo” is a chilling salute to the Barranquilla Carnival of 1971.

As you are guaranteed to hear music on this compilation you have never encountered before, it is a must for even the most seasoned cumbia hound. But those new to the form will find the set equally delightful, such is the quality of the music collected here.

Words by David Katz (Review Originally Published on BBC Music)

What’s so great about Las Acacias is that there’s so much to it with so little going on. Ruben is kind of grouchy, keeps to himself, and is definitely not so sure about doing this favour… even if it’s his boss the one ordering him to. When he meets Jacinta and baby Anahi for the first time, Ruben doesn’t really want them there.

That’s it! Take a road movie and throw in a baby, and chaos could ensue… except it doesn’t here. Ruben doesn’t like babies — I think a vast majority of non-parents can relate to that — or at least doesn’t seem to warm easily to this particular baby.

We don’t learn much about Jacinta other than her purpose and that she’s there with her baby, yet the setup to Ruben’s character is so smooth that we already feel like we’re the truck drivers in the story. We see him warming to both his guests just as we warm to them — if we didn’t find baby Anahi cute at the beginning, we soon begin to fall for her charms.

Las Acacias‘ ease to make us feel like we already know these people personally, the fluidity of how it moves from scene to scene like we’re part of this road movie is what probably got director Girogelli the three important awards at Cannes: La Semaine de la Critique, in which the film got the Young Critics Award, the Golden Camera, and the ACID Award given by a jury of directors.

Though the film is carried by German de Silva and his blossoming possible interest in Hebe Duarte’s character, it is baby Nayra who steals the film. I’m serious, baby Nayra should be nominated for an Oscar: Best Supporting Actress. Even before Ruben warms to Jacinta it’s his relationship with Anahi that really allows for him to step out of the dark, lonely shadow that he has been living under.

Las Acacias is in UK cinemas from 2nd December. You can see a list of cinemas screening the film here.

This review was originally published in YAM Magazine

Wara is formed of no less than nine performers with the majority of them meeting up at the creative, cultural and political hot bed that is SOAS university and these tracks are a great reflection of the SOAS scene; intelligent, vibrant and quality. A mix of rumba, salsa, funk and hip hop with a pop edge. Stand out tracks and highlighting the beautiful vocals of lead singer Juanita Euka are “Pretty Cliche” with a cumbia feel and the acoustic “Ojos Que No Ven” which drips with a subtle passion and mystique which signals these guys are ‘wara’ it’s at.

by Russ Jones

Released 26th September 2011 by Movimientos Records

“Ojos Que No Ven”

Buy/Download Wara EP at:
iTunes
Amazon
Movimientos Records Bandcamp

After a few groovy numbers of watching the duo rock-out, Adams turned to his already captivated audience and said “We don’t know where this is going – this guy is dangerous – you wait!”. At this moment, the magnificence of the term “trance” came to light. With well-known tunes from their previous albums, Soul Science (Wayward, 2007), Tell No Lies (Real World, 2009) and their recently released wonder In Trance (Real World, 2011), Camara did just that, with his spontaneous, evocative motives that moved alongside and at times alternated with Adam’s guitar grooves creating a musical dynamic between the two that was thrilling to all senses. Soon, most of the audience were on their feet dancing away in the aisles. There were others of course that attempted the “dancing in chair” à la mode – a favourite of seated-venues such as the Barbican. There were also just those who were completely mesmerised by the entrancing, bluesy-based volume that kept them still like a hallucinogenic drug.

“If you want to dance properly” said Adams, “you need to catch the train to Bangor, North Wales – they’re wild over there!” The Englishman was right. This was the only catch about the gig – where it was staged. Simply, how can people enjoy the music to its truest “potential”, if they are obstructed by objects such as chairs and lots of stairs?

Besides this slight hitch, the English/Gambian duo – whilst not forgetting new bass player Billy Fuller and percussionist Dave Smith – were truly remarkable. The combination of Camara’s passion-fuelled Fulani vocals and folk-style ritti playing, Fuller’s groovy bass-lines, Smith’s jazzy-Gambian beats and Adams’ rock-infused-riffs gave way to a sublime, psychedelic sound that cannot be compared to any other.

After a well-affirmed encore, JuJu’s final number Ya Takaya brought everyone to their feet and I soon found myself dancing at the front of the stage amongst the hardcore, smiling fans. How I got there I do not know. What I do know however, was that Adams was right, his co-star certainly knew how to get his audience into a transcendental state. A jaw-opening blast-off to the Barbican’s Transcender Festival 2011.

by Amy Cunningham

Check out one of the tracks of their new album In Trance: realworldrecords.com/videos/djanfa-moja

You can buy their last album In Trance from Amazon

Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara with Robert Plant at WOMAD Abu Dhabi:

Hailed as “Rio’s nu-bossa princess”, Malheiros has three albums under her belt and a growing fan-base from around the world. She shot to fame with debut album Equilibria on Far Out Recordings in 2005, following that up with Vibrasons, a remix album in 2006. Her third album (and second album of new songs), New Morning, received critical acclaim, including being declared as “the best album of 2008” by the Evening Standard.

Three years on, Malheiros’ long anticipated new album Dreaming, is set to hit stores on the 19th September, and with a remarkable arrangement of colourful, chill-out grooves that showcase the singers’ broad musical influences, it is a serious contender for the best summer album of 2011.

I just love this album. It is not too often that you come across a compilation that captures a mood and keeps you in that zone from start to finish, but Dreaming succeeds. It is a well-crafted orchestra of breezy eclectic sounds that make you want to dance and also dream. Malheiro’s songs beautifully express the nostalgia of classic Brazilian music, with a refreshing, contemporary edge. Broken-beat, electro-soul and jazz rhythms are peppered with trademark samba and bossa nova flavours, crafted by leading Brazilian musicians on the album, including her father Alex Malheiros, bass player of legendary group Azymuth, and renowned Brazilian percussionist, Robertinho Silva (Milton Nascimento). Written and produced by Malheiros and her partner Daniel ‘Venom’ Maunick, It is no wonder that Dreaming is so musically rich.

Lead album track “Bobeira” is a triumph – combining a nu-bossa groove with a synthesised acid jazz feel, conjuring up summertime. “Lirio De Venus” grabs you with a retro dub beat smoothed over by the kind of flawless dream-like vocals that Malheiros is best loved for. Other standout tracks include the psychedelic “Segredo” and “Opara” with its infectious Afro–Brazilian beat.

Since the age of five Malheiros has lived and breathed music and it is this maturity that comes across in Dreaming. It is one album you can easily have on a loop with several tracks worthy of a re-wind. You certainly don’t need to be a Brazilian music aficionado to appreciate what Dreaming has to offer, and I can only simply describe it as a welcome injection of fresh, musical sunshine, guaranteed to brighten the long winter months and beyond.

Written by Fola Odumosu

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Dreaming will be released by Far Out Recordings on September 19th.

Sabrina will also be going on a UK tour during September and October. Details are below:

21 September – Boisdale Jazz FM Discovery Gig, London (Album launch – broadcast on Jazz FM)
19 October – Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh
20 October – Band On The Wall, Manchester
21 October – The Wardrobe, Leeds
22 October – Hoochie Coochie, Newcastle
01 December – Turner Sims, Southampton

And lastly here’s Sabrina singing the Brazilian national anthem at the Brazil vs Scotland game earlier this year:

Cotton Skies is Emily Saunders’ debut album and is full of Brazilian grooves; plenty of samba bossa nova with hints of jazz, soul and summer sounds. Instrumentally-focused, Cotton Skies is technically great, with lots of instruments providing the perfect platform for Emily’s beautiful voice. The first song of the album is a version of “Ginga Carioca”, a song by Brazil’s multi-instrumentalist genius Hermeto Pascoal.

“Wishing Well” and “Dream” are the next songs of the album and they both have an old-school vibe to them. The slow trumpets and the quiet percussion in “Wishing Well” and the bossa nova melody coming from the piano in “Dream” will definitely put you in a relaxed mood.

As the album progresses, “Daze” and “Xibaba”, fourth and fifth tracks of the album respectively, show a hint of the 50s, reminding me of the old Brazilian sambas as they are fast paced and seducing… almost inviting you for a little dance. These two songs just literally make you want to move your body.

From the more upbeat 50s sambas, Cotton Skies travels back to the tranquil waters of bossa nova and jazz. That is what I found in “Days”, number six on the album, and “O Sonho”, the following song. Both tracks have lots of piano and vocal skills in a combination that result in an unbelievably soothing sound.

However, it is “Mixing”, track number eight, the highlight of this album. In this song Emily shows all her “Braziliality” as well as her own beautiful understanding of Brazilian music. “Mixing” is a great samba song which mixes a strong bossa nova influence with the “cheeky” sound of cuica and stunning vocal skills from Emily Saunders.

In “Serendipity”, the second to last song of Cotton Skies, Emily goes back to a more “Billie Holiday” style of jazz. It is a charming soulful song with beautiful lyrics and, again, a passionate singer in Emily Saunders, who nails her vocals. The last track is “Zachary”, another delicious jazzy tune, a perfect closure for an overall easy listening album.

Emily Saunder’s Cotton Skies could be referred to as repetitive or lacking in creativity and ambition, but it is exactly the opposite. The lack of ambition is what makes the album so good. It lives for the definition of LP as it is a long play album, that needs to be fully listened and appreciated. And even though the summer might be on the wane, Emily Saunder’s stunning debut is so “homie” that it will be able to keep you warm for a bit longer.

Words by Eduardo Pagnoncelli

Cotton Skies is available from Amazon and iTunes.

You can find out more about Emily at emilysaunders.co.uk.

It’s no surprise that the production of films featuring capoeira would eventually reach other continents, given the process of globalisation that capoeira has been through over the years and the appropriation of the art by the cultural industry. One good example is the Hollywood production, Only the Strong, released in 1993 and premièred in Brazil under the suggestive title Esporte Sangrento (Bloody Sport). As a worldwide phenomenon, the film reached young men and women all over the planet and inspired a whole generation to start practising capoeira.

In spite of what movies such as Only the Strong have done to popularise Capoeira on a global scale, what we find really interesting about films featuring capoeira and other expressions of Brazilian popular culture is their ability to produce an aesthetics of performance full of tropical exoticism, which has been constantly re-invented over the years. For instance, where would samba be today without the prominent figure of Carmén Miranda, who helped project the music style beyond Brazilian borders, conferring it the status of one of the symbols of our national identity. During the 1930s, Miranda participated in two important films, A Voz do Carnaval and Banana da Terra, in which she sings the famous song, “O Que é Que a Baiana Tem?” (What does the Baiana have?), written by Dorival Caymmi. The same happened with the tango, for instance, which had its Argentine-ness reinforced through the films of Carlos Gardel, during the first half of the XX century.

Samba and tango are good examples of how the phonographic and cinematographic industries have converged to exploit and promote symbols of popular culture, bringing audiences to the theatres, on the one hand, and selling records, on the other. Thanks to its ambiguous character – a blend of martial-arts, dance and music – it has been no different with capoeira. Judgements aside, it’s nothing new to say that the arts in general have used capoeira and other expressions of Brazilian popular culture as elements of artistic exploitation, at the same time that they re-invented a new aesthetics of these cultural forms. Need some examples? Just take a look at the paintings of Carybé and the photography of Pierre Verger.

As for the film industry, we could point out a number of national and international productions featuring Capoeira as their flagship: Vadiação, Dança de Guerra, Cordão de Ouro, Only the Strong, A Capoeira Iluminada, Mandinga in Manhatam, and Besouro, to name a few. Fly Away Beetle appears in this sequence. In a way, it is an extension of all of them, especially those in documentary format, even though it seems to pull back from traditional documentary style.

The film brings the testimony of three renowned masters, Boca Rica, Olavo dos Santos and Cobra Mansa. It also shows the true story of Roque Batista, a young men living on the streets of Salvador, Bahia, who turns to capoeira in order to save himself from destitution. The story is not at all unknown for us capoeiristas: capoeira as a tool for self-transformation and for bettering one’s life, and the strong connection of the art with the magical city of Salvador da Bahia, Mecca of capoeira and epicentre of Afro-Brazilian culture.

Besides the renowned masters, Roque Batista and two of his young capoeira students, Fly Away Beetle also features other characters which, in spite of not having a particular identity in the documentary, perform a very important role for the underlying discourse of the film. We are speaking of the capoeiristas which during the action shots perform blows and acrobatic moves in typical contemporary capoeira style. The exposure of the half-naked bodies and the urban/natural scenario of Salvador highlight a tropical-mulatto type of aesthetics. Most of these scenes take place outdoors, at some of the famous sights of the city and in public spaces, where kids play soccer, the baianas sell their products and capoeira co-exists.

Within the broader context of the film, the above scenes contrast with the testimonies of the older masters who, through their own stories and memories, take us back to a time when capoeira was persecuted, devalued, marginalised and despised by society. It is through this correlation between beautiful capoeira shots and the crude reality of its early stages – expressed though the testimonies of mestres Olavo and Boca Rica – that Fly Away Beetle presents us with a paradox and, certainly, what the film has of most importance. A practice developed by enslaved Africans in Brazil and their descendants – just like samba and other cultural practices not long ago derogatorily classified as “negroes’ pastimes” – completes its transition between opposite extremes. Capoeira is no longer seen by the elite as “one of the indications of our inferiority as a people”. It has reached the artistic scene and become one of the symbols of our national identity. Nonetheless, it is through the story of Roque Batista that Fly Away Beetle reminds us that, even though capoeira has reached Hollywood, the Afro-Brazilian population continues to be confined to poverty, destitution and marginality, needy of social projects or of a “lifeline” such as samba, football and capoeira to save them from social exclusion.

Additionally, it is worth mentioning the parallel between Fly Away Beetle and the myth of Besouro Preto or Black Beetle – the magical capoeirista who would turn into a beetle and fly away whenever in trouble. The legend of Besouro recently reached the screens of theatres in Brazil with the film Besouro. Besouro takes place in the old Bahia, and it introduces us to mestre Alípio who, just like Olavo, Boca Rica and Cobra Mansa, represents the figure of the old master, keeper of the traditions and master of Besouro. In the film/myth, Besouro spends most of his time in the wild tropical forest, where he encounters the spirits of nature and Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. The Besouro of Fly Away Beetle is Roque Batista, and its wild forest is the urban jungle of Salvador, full of dangers which can lead one into social disorder, chaos and marginalization. Roque’s magical element of metamorphosis of man into insect is capoeira; magical, black, racially mixed, tropical, ancestral, and ritualised in a world ever more secularised.

In spite of such obvious deconstruction, it is important to emphasise that capoeira has indeed made a great contribution to social projects with the objective of promoting the social inclusion of Afro-Brazilians and the strengthening of their self-esteem. Roque Batista is just one of the many Afro-Brazilians to whom capoeira has given life, either because he left behind a possible tragic end to become one of the disseminators of the art, or because Capoeira has enabled the cinema to reconstruct his narrative on screen.

The conversion of popular culture into an aesthetic object is a magic that the cinema knows how to do well, especially when sweetened by the no less mystical capoeira of modern times. It’s no surprise that the European première of Fly Away Beetle took place in two great post-colonial metropolises, Lisbon and London, where global audiences consume what is produced in the periphery of the world. After all, Roque and Roll are global products.

Words by Ricardo Cangaceiro

Ricardo “Cangaceiro” Nascimento is a geographer, Master in Sociology of Culture, Capoeira instructor, and is currently completing a PhD in Anthropology at the University of Lisbon.

Sem Nostalgia is a concept, taking it’s starting point as the “voice and guitar” format of Brazilian guitar music, i.e. Joao Gilberto’s bossa nova style, and then taking the idea in as many directions as possible. Over 12 songs Santtana, and an assortment of collaborators, only use voice and violin yet manage to create some startling compositions and soundscapes. Here we take a look at the album track-by-track.

1. Super Violão Mashup

The album opener; guitars originally played by Dorival Caymmi, Joao Gilberto and company cut up until almost unrecognisable. Engineers Gustavo Lenza and Lucas Martins were instrumental in making this track happen. This was the first single from the album in the UK. Check out the video below:

2. Who Can Say Which Way

Do Amor join Lucas for a song that has all the feel of a band yet only features vocals, acoustic guitar and a bassline (which presumably is played on guitar too). There is a recurring theme in this song too as the striking of a guitar with the palm of a hand is sampled and used for percussion.

3. Nightime In the Backyard

The first of three collaborations with Arto Lindsay, an artist renowned in the US for his avant-garde stylings but who has proudly discovered his Brazilian heritage through working with artists such as Caetano Veloso, Vinicius Cantuaria and Lucas Santtana, with whom he has worked for the last 10 years. This is definitely one of the highlights of the disc.

4. Cira, Regina E Nana (Para Nana)

Curumin assisted on this one, sampling the sounds of an acoustic guitar and then sequencing them as if they were a drum beat. The rest is classic Santtana; fluid guitar playing, catchy melody and a voice that seems to swim through the music, effortlessly guiding it on it’s course.

5. Recado Para Pio Lobato

Santtana’s previous album 3 Sessions In A Greenhouse was something of an exercise in dub, and this is the closest that he gets to that style of music here. Deep bass, rhythmic strumming and guitars that sound alternately like a clavichord and a synth keep this instrumental consistently interesting. Regis Damasceno (of Cidadão Instigado) lends a hand.

6. Hold Me In

Second collaboration with Arto Lindsay. It’s one of five songs on the album which are sung in English. With four songs being instrumentals, this makes English the dominant language on the album. Something that is quite unusual considering Santtana is currently not too comfortable with his spoken English. In a recent interview he stated three reasons for using English; first is the fact that him and Arto have always collaborated using English lyrics and this felt natural, secondly he feels English is a big part of Brazilian culture due to it’s prominence through music and arts, and third is that it’s easier to write percussive songs with English (such as on “Who Can Say Which Way?”) as the syllables of words are generally shorter.

7. Amor Em Jacumã

Cover of Dom Um Romão’s samba-jazz classic, taken from his 1976 album Hotmosphere. This also appeared on Mr Bongo’s recent reissue of Cravo e Canela’s classic Preço de Cada Um album. Buguinha Dub helps with the production, which has elements of dub as well as electronic splutters and samples that keep the song skipping along. Here’s an acoustic version of the song from the Musica de Bolso people:

8. I Can’t Live Far From My Music

The last of the collaborations with Arto Lindsay, though this time one with a very different feel. With Kabo Duca who played percussion on his guitar’s body and an orchestra of guitars that dance between ominous chords and sharp strums, it’s a song that manages to combine rhythm and a darker feel.

9. Cá Pra Nós

A collaboration with Ronei Jorge that’s one of the most unique tracks here. Vocals are continually at the front as the guitar shatters into a hundred pieces shining in the sun until vocal hums and a single acoustic pulls the song into more-standard territory.

10. O Violão De Mario Bros

Carrying on the theme of “Super Violão Mashup” and using the help of Gustavo Lenza and Lucas Martins again, though this time with João Brasil behind the controls. Guitars pop, shudder, bounce and charge through one minute and 38 seconds of pure joy.

11. Ripple of the Water (Para Nana)

Recorded in Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Gardens at night with the glow of the moon and an army of insects as company. This is the most traditional song on the album. After all, it really is just a voice and a guitar, as well as featuring the kind of allegorical lyric that could have been written by João Gilberto or Caymmi.

12. Natureza Nº 1 Em Mi Maior

The last track, and an instrumental too. It sounds like the microphone was left on after “Ripple of the Water”, capturing the night’s atmosphere as well as other-wordly sounds that presumably come from the guitar but yet which are at times unrecognisable. Eventually a series of guitar chords bring the song, and the album, to a conclusion.

by Russ Slater

Sem Nostalgia was released by Mais Um Discos on August 29th and is available from Amazon and iTunes.