Brazil Forever.

Woebot · Oct 17, 2004

This cover is so punk! A bridge to Favela Funk in that sense, proof positive of this music's avant-lumpen cred. Love affair with Brazilian stuff continuing unabated. I've ripped this record, an absolute masterpiece BELIEVE to CD so if people can hit me with brilliant stuff they haven't heard I can pass it on. Lo Borges (as any fule kno?) was the singer/collaborator on Milton Nascimento's "Clube Da Esquina". If you ask me, the crisp arrangements on this street funk masterpiece point to him being the nth power behind that record. So sublime and such rock-hard breaks, sample fodder indeed.

Nick Wrigley has sent me:

Caetano Veloso's 1969
Really excellent, one or two tracks surpassing his highlights, but rather too many lyrics in english.

Edu Lobo's "Missa Breva" (1973)
Absolutely STUNNING, every house needs a copy of this. Really strong tinge of lapsed catholicism (don't tell Fisher!), subdued choirs of women hymning the lord, super-chic easyisms (deep breathy floot), some beyond seductive tunes and edu (as previously observed) SO DREAD! Strong influence on Stereolab "Dots and Loops"-era mooted. Better than "Cantiga De Longe" by a mile, invisible on vinyl but you can get this on CD. Forever indebted to Nick for this one.

Lo Borges "A Via Lactea" (1978)
Quite nice, but a bit saccharine/gloopy. A few too many misplaced synths. Still, nice. I'll hit you with my Borges Nick, though suspect you may have it.

Morlu sent me:

Gilbert Gil's 1969 (feat. Celebrio Electrico etc)
Just dipped my ear in but sounding like fully-expanded baroque tropicalia. (Kodwo you can have one of these if you want.)

Caetano Veloso/Gal Costa's "Domingo" (1967)
Looked for this for ages in vain. Kind of had the idea it was reissued on vinyl. Not checked this yet owing to backlog ;-) or the last one i've got here...

Caetano's "Joia"
...which again comes highly recommended.

I also picked up Veloso's "Trans" recently and again found the lyrics in english a real turn off. Looking forward to a package from Jon Dale, who (poor feller) is having a miserable time of it, thoughts with u pal. Did anyone catch the recent FACT mag with it's top 25 Brazilian records? (Tufluv not around to ask) Anyone care to furnish us with the details here?

DavidD · Oct 17, 2004

I have to say, I'm incredibly jealous.

Woebot · Oct 17, 2004

dont be dave! drop me a line and i'll sort u aat.

DavidD · Oct 18, 2004

I'll be back home in two days and I will as soon as I get back!

nonightsweats · Oct 19, 2004

i really can't see what's so appealing about most of this music. i have a few of the 60s and 70s brazilian things like gilberto gil and caetano veloso and it does very little for me. i can see that the melodies are intruiging but the delivery of them irks me somehow. the only thing i've really liked in this vein is a tom ze track from his 90s remake album "frabrication defect" where the sound is updated and it all seems a bit punchier. but i much prefer it when it's been corrupted completely - sergio mendes and brasil '66 for example: classic lounge takes on all the songs of these people.

Woebot · Oct 19, 2004

nonightsweats said:
i really can't see what's so appealing about most of this music. i have a few of the 60s and 70s brazilian things like gilberto gil and caetano veloso and it does very little for me. i can see that the melodies are intruiging but the delivery of them irks me somehow. the only thing i've really liked in this vein is a tom ze track from his 90s remake album "frabrication defect" where the sound is updated and it all seems a bit punchier. but i much prefer it when it's been corrupted completely - sergio mendes and brasil '66 for example: classic lounge takes on all the songs of these people.

For me its the sophistication of the delivery (the very croon) which, though I can't stand it in First World music, once supplanted to the Third (Second?) World becomes fascinating. The smoothness (and here I'm referring to your comments re:delivery) flies in the face of dominant reality. Edu Lobo is something like Bryan Ferry, and while later Roxy sounds ooh-too-smooth to these ears (ok nice but a bit classy/silly) within his context the smoothness reads as refusal. They say that Bossa Nova was "the quiet revolution", and although it translates to western ears as empty croon, at its apogee its a deep/melancholic head-fuck.

redcrescent · Oct 19, 2004

@ nonightsweats

I respect your judgement. Never mind if everyone around you raves about Caetano Veloso and his music does nothing for you. I have that with Bob Dylan, for example. "Brilliant", "influential", "great songwriter", "unique voice", kudos upon kudos, biographies galore, etc., but he leaves me cold. No one but you decides (or should decide!) what sounds good to you, after all.
You commented favorably on Tom Zé's 1998 album Fabrication Defect (Luaka Bop), an excellent example of Brazilian musical guerrilla tactics that Zé here calls "arrastão"*: the appropiation of (usually Western) cultural symbols and icons to serve an entirely different purpose than originally intended (in this context, a croon can actually be a shout of defiance/despair, or, in the case at hand, cultural emancipation).
* "arrastão - a dragnet: technique used in urban robbery. A small group fan out and then run furiously through a crowd, taking people's money, jewelry, bags, sometimes even clothes."
The cultural cannibalism (not my term) of the tropicalistas, who absorbed everything coming to their ears from overseas (i.e. the industrialized North) and, in the political and social pressure cooker their country was, combined it with a uniquely Brazilian sensibility and incredible musicianship to create something indelibly theirs, even if you could still sense elements of what had been appropriated in the final mix. This to me is an even more radical "corruption" of the sources than Sergio Mendes' smooth lounge fare - Zé's music and that of the other tropicalistas gives you the impression (the creative process can occasionally a brutal one) that musical pockets have been picked and the loot employed for something the owners would not have envisioned (or even approved of).
Each track from Fabrication Defect is an arrastão of someone else's idea: Victims include St. Augustine, Rimsky-Korsakov, Flaubert, Alfred Nobel and "the anonymous musicians who play in the São Paulo night." Quite a different thing compared to Sergio Mendes' (po)lite versions of bossa nova classics and (cod-)Latinification of Buffalo Springfield, Stevie Wonder, and, uh, Peter Cetera songs, I think. History is unkind, and "rarely has an artist graced the dollar bins more often than Mr. Mendes." (waxpoetics)
From the liner notes of Fabrication Defect: "Esthetics of plagiarism: The esthetic of the fabrication defect will re-utilize the sonorous civilized trash (everyday symphony), be they conventional or unconventional instruments (for example: toys, cars, whistles, saws, hertz or orchestra, street noises, etc.) - all of this put into a rhythmic or dance music format, with choruses, and within the parameters of popular music. It will recycle an alphabet of emotions contained in songs and musical symbols of the first world, that sealed each marked step of our affective and emotional life [my italics] They will be put to use in small "cells" of "plagiarized" material. This deliberate practice unleashes an esthetic of plagiarism, an esthetic of arrastão that ambushes the universe of the well-known and traditional music. We are at the end, thus, of the composers' era, inaugurating the plagi-combinator era." [Insert reference to Negativland, plunderphonics, bootleg pop, sample culture, and a long, long etc., here]
In my modest opinion, although he had his moments, no doubt, Mendes is, by and large, a popularizer - Zé is an innovator (or would Mendez have used a picture of a marble in an arsehole as an album cover - Todos os olhos, 1973 - which censors passed thinking it was an eye?). If it's complete corruption you seek, friend, it's staring you in the face.

nonightsweats · Oct 20, 2004

WOEBOT said:
For me its the sophistication of the delivery (the very croon) which, though I can't stand it in First World music, once supplanted to the Third (Second?) World becomes fascinating. The smoothness (and here I'm referring to your comments re:delivery) flies in the face of dominant reality. Edu Lobo is something like Bryan Ferry, and while later Roxy sounds ooh-too-smooth to these ears (ok nice but a bit classy/silly) within his context the smoothness reads as refusal. They say that Bossa Nova was "the quiet revolution", and although it translates to western ears as empty croon, at its apogee its a deep/melancholic head-fuck.

so where do you stand on the great crooners - sinatra et al? i can listen to their best material all day long but am repulsed by later roxy and ferry's solo things. and what about when the brasilian person sings in english? there's definitely some deep sonnection between the portugues language and bossa that is lessened when another language is used.

nonightsweats · Oct 20, 2004

redcresent: mendes was a terrific musician (which, btw, is something i actively abhor in most things) but he couldn't write a good song if it killed him. that's why he did versions of all those great tunes that others wrote. i agree with you completely about ze (and, i suppose, gil and vaeloso and others) - they made an intelligent and active participation in the whole stream of music. but, as you said, it just doesn't connect fully for me. i must admit that my love for mendes does have some sort of campy quality about it - so bad that it's good, etc.

baboon2004 · Nov 23, 2009

In the spirit of revival, let's revive this one...

I love Clube da Esquina (Milton Nascimento/Lo Borges) above any other Brazilian stuff I've heard, but am partial to a bit of Nelson Angelo & Joyce as well. Anything else I should be checking out?

Esoteric/avant stuff welcome too - I have that Ze Ramalho (?) that was released a few years back.

Also Olivia Byington:

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and the classics:

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oh, and sergio mendes' masquerade with brasil 66 (not 'this masquerade' with brasil 77, mind) is one of the best songs ever. Not on youtube, but there's a weirdly echoed clip here: Amazon product ASIN B000W1SSX8

franz · Nov 24, 2009

most of what i know of Brazilian music has been bestowed upon me by a Russian Israeli... who knows a ridiculous amount about it.

a few years in now, i really have to say that i gravitate more to the 70s fare than i do the late 60s... maybe purely a taste thing.

i think Caetano's delivery is amazing in any language... some of his English songs/versions run through my head all the time (lines like "Nine out of ten film stars make me cry...")

Joia is a really really really amazing record, so i'll second that one. really i suspect i'll gradually learn to love more and more of his records as life goes along. most everything in the 70s is worth hearing (at least for a song here or there), same goes for 60s... maybe one day i'll manage the jump forward... maybe not.
check out Julia Moreno (from Araca Azul), Aracaju (Cinema Transcendental), etc etc

my personal for Jorge Ben is Tabua de Esmeralda (check out Cinco Minutos)... obv the record with Gil has some amazing moments too...

as for Gil, again, check the records... but i will make a point of saying seek out the song One O'Clock Last Morning, 20th April 1970... it's from his 1971 record made in exile... truly amazing song for it vocal polyphony techniques as much as much as for the wrenching political context of the sketchy story it relates...

on mostly bossa and bossa hybrid tips... check out Chico Buarque records, Joao Gilberto (of course... really love his Aguas de Marco record... always felt that my love of that was related to my love for certain steppy uk break patterns), Baden Powell (esp his record with Vinicius de Moraes), and Paulinho Da Viola (danca da solidao)

i've heard many people argue in favour of Missa Breve over Cantiga, and i just can't agree... obviously it's mining more innovative territory (vis a vis the Brazilian musical culture of its time), but i just can't love the songs like those of Cantiga... sorry. but to be constructive, i will say don't sleep on his duo record with Maria Bethania... also quite amazing, and perhaps my favourite bits of her work as well.

on a Nordest tip... Milagre dos Peixes has been one of my all time favourites of the era for a very long time... obviously lots of Milton should be checked, but don't miss that... along with Gil and Veloso, in that early 70s period Milton made some amazing otherworldly music as a result of the constraints put upon him by the ruling military dictatorship... a tremendous creative moment that surely runs parallel with some of the most interesting literary allegories created by Latin American writers in similar circumstances...
but i'm getting sidetracked here... Nordest: check Borges' solo record for sure, has some moments as amazing as Esquina... (also Rogerio Duprat produced i think? a key figure in this entire history who sometimes goes unmentioned).
check Alceu Valenca... absolutely do not miss Joyce' record with Nelson Angelo

Marcos Valle's body of work is def worth sifting through... very much in the middle of that right now myself... he rides the line of good taste sometimes, but that means he can get to amazing places that certain other musicians can't.

2 songs:
Joao Bosco- Alferes
Erasmo Carlos- Mane Joao

pajbre · Nov 25, 2009

surprised no one has mentioned the s/t from arthur verocai... essential the whole way through, heavily sampled by the likes of doom, madlib, etc...

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baboon2004 · Nov 25, 2009

Sampled by madlib, really?? can you give me links - I tried to do a beat with the strings from 'O Mapa', but took ages and still couldn't get it quite right

Corpsey · Jul 16, 2010

bumping this thread cos its just what i've been looking for

have become slowly obsessed with 'clube de esquina' over the past few months (cheers woebot!)

rivetrenuck · Nov 22, 2010

rivetrenuck · Nov 26, 2010

franz said:
as for Gil, again, check the records... but i will make a point of saying seek out the song One O'Clock Last Morning, 20th April 1970... it's from his 1971 record made in exile...

on mostly bossa and bossa hybrid tips... check out Chico Buarque records, Joao Gilberto (of course... really love his Aguas de Marco record...

Marcos Valle's body of work is def worth sifting through... very much in the middle of that right now myself... he rides the line of good taste sometimes, but that means he can get to amazing places that certain other musicians can't.

Dear all, I have got the Brasillian bug, I am so addicted to this entire universe of music its scares me.

In regards with the above quotes what would be a good place to start with those artists? they seem to have so many records out, some i don't even know if their genuine. Also if you could tell me little bit more about those albums.

I have been reading excerpts out of Caetono Veloso's book - Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil.

Didnt buy due to some reviews saying its poorly written and poorly translated, but i think parts of it are on his web.
http://www.caetanoveloso.com.br/sec_textos_list.php?language=en&page=2&caetano=1

Thank you all

Lex

franz · Nov 27, 2010

for Joao Gilberto:

Aguas de Marco is actually the only one i know really well. I think there would be a fair number of records predating it that would feature bossa within a more orchestral framework... this is a barebones rhythm combo and Joao humming and whispering along. sonically, records like this aren't the most easy thing to come by... at least in proportion to the amount of times i feel like having at the particular vibe they give off... there should really be no hesitation here for someone at all curious about this musical history (whether you end up liking it or not).

with Chico, i think great tracks are scattered across his output, but people usually single out Construcao, and it certainly is a great record, with amazing production from Rogerio Duprat. Smack dab in Brazil's dictatorial troubles, which definitely features on the record.

with Marcos Valle a lot of people like Previsao do Tempo... i find it a bit corny at times, but it's quite adventurous. Garra gets mentions as well... i think Vento Sul might be the one i most like personally, however...

as i at least half intimated before, i think early seventies is my sweet spot with this stuff, and if i were you i would start there and work out in either direction from that spot. but that's coming from someone who is not so into the rockingest stuff, and doesn't care that Os Mutantes are playing in town this weekend.

massrock · Nov 27, 2010

Contemporaneously speaking, what I've heard off this comp sounds really good.

Amazon product ASIN B003Y57UVU
Disc: 1
1. Mini Box Lunar - Amarelasse (Amapá)
2. Do Amor - Perdizes (Rio de Janeiro)
3. Tulipa - Pedrinho (São Paulo)
4. Graveola e O Lixo Polifônico - Outro Modo (Minas Gerais)
5. Diego de Moraes e O Sindicato - Amigo (Goias)
6. Cidadão Instigado - Ovelhinhas (Ceará)
7. Caldo de Piaba - Venska Pro Papai (Acre)
8. La Pupuña - Ex-Quadrilha Da Fumaça (Belém)
9. Mombojó - Justamente (Pernambuco)
10. China - Colocando Sal Nas Feridas (Pernambuco)
11. Lucas Santtana - Hold Me In (Bahia)
12. Eddie - Bairro Novo/ Casa Caiada (Pernambuco)
13. Burro Morto - Navalha Cega (Paraiba)
14. Porcas Borboletas - Nome Próprio (Minas Gerais)
15. Orquestra Contemporânea de Olinda - Tá Falado (Pernambuco)
16. Alessandra Leão - Boa Hora (Pernambuco)
17. Ronei Jorge e Os Ladrões De Bicicleta - Vidinha (Bahia)
18. naurÊa - Hoje Tem Forró (Sergipe)
19. Siba e Roberto Corrêa - Cara De Bronze (Pernambuco)
20. Otto - Crua (Pernambuco)
Disc: 2
1. 3namassa ft. CéU - Doce Guia (São Paulo / Pernambuco)
2. Catarina Dee Jah - Kay Fora (Pernambuco)
3. Curumin ft. BNegão & Lucas Santtana - Caixa Preta (Pernambuco)
4. M. Takara & R. Brandão - Bença Do Batuque (São Paulo)
5. Jam Da Silva - Mania (Pernambuco)
6. Chico Correa & Electronic Band - Eu Pisei Na Pedra (Paraiba)
7. Os Ritmistas?- Samba De Pacto (Rio de Janeiro)
8. Zé Neguinho do Côco - Recife D'água (DJ Dolores' Dub Remix) (Pernambuco)
9. BaianaSystem - O Carnaval Quem é Que Faz? (Bahia)
10. Mestre Curica - Carimbó Pra Maria (Luico K remix) (Rio de Janeiro)
11. Chernobyl&Praga - Balança (Porto Alegre)
12. Maderito & Joe - Eletro Do Maciota Light (Belém)
13. Pio Lobato - Cultura Do Pará (Belém)
14. Gaby Amarantos - Melody Do Vetron (Belém)
15. Coletivo Rádio Cipó - Amor Brejeiro (Belém)
16. DJ Tudo & Gente De Todo Lugar - Gaita Mestra (Cock Soup Mix) (São Paulo)
17. Flora Matos & Stereodubs - Pai De Família (Brasília)
18. Instituto - Ossario (São Paulo)
19. Guardaloop - O Dub (Pernambuco)
20. Júlia Says - Cá (Pernambuco)

rivetrenuck · Dec 8, 2010

franz said:
for Joao Gilberto:
with Chico, i think great tracks are scattered across his output, but people usually single out Construcao, and it certainly is a great record, with amazing production from Rogerio Duprat. Smack dab in Brazil's dictatorial troubles, which definitely features on the record.

as i at least half intimated before, i think early seventies is my sweet spot with this stuff, and if i were you i would start there and work out in either direction from that spot. but that's coming from someone who is not so into the rockingest stuff, and doesn't care that Os Mutantes are playing in town this weekend.

Thank you guys for getting back to me, sorry it has taken so long for a reply.

Sorry to keep buggin Franz, what other Chico records do you like. I am very much for the non rockingness sound of brasil.

I know you mentioned a great ammount of names here. but how do i start at the 70s. a good place to look up stuff like this? a rough guide book? a blog?

thank you for being kind.

rivetrenuck · Dec 8, 2010

Brazil Forever.

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can't be stopped

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Darned cockwombles.

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bandz ahoy

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