Music Blogs

Brazil Classics 7: What's Happening in Pernambuco, New Sounds of the Brazilian Northeast: Luaka Bop returns with yet another installment of their critically lauded Pernambuco series, and the sounds are as stunning as ever.

Back story: Long the deserted wasteland among Brazil's typically touted national hotspots, Pernambuco and its major urban center of Recife (which enjoyed the infamous distinction of being named "fourth worst city in the world to live in" by a population studies institute in Washington, D.C.) dug itself out of a cultural hole in the mid-'80s by finding sustenance in the one thing most citizens found worthless: the mangue swamp, which surrounded the city like a noxious spider's web. Journalist Fred Zero and musician Chico Science embraced the swamp in the same way Americans embrace the Mississippi or Columbia rivers: life giver, shape shifter, timeless fountain and inspiring living organism.

"Emergency!" wrote Zero. "A rapid shock or Recife dies of heart attack! It is not necessary to be a doctor to know that the simplest way to stop a heart is to obstruct its veins. The quickest way to kill and empty the soul of a city is to kill its rivers and fill its estuaries. How to avoid drowning in the chronic depression that paralyzes the citizens? How to return some courage and recharge the batteries of the city? It's simple! It's just to inject some energy in the mud and stimulate what's left of fertility in the veins of Recife."

Local musicians responded and eventually, a new scene was born. Combining native maracatu, coco, ciranda and embolada rhythms with punk, rock and funk, bands like AbrilProRock have rescued the Recife scene and helped to thrust it headlong into the new millennium. Chico Science became the world's mangueboy, only to die in a tragic car crash at the height of his career. His band, Nação Zumbi, perpetuates his memory and his "alchemy of sounds." Contemporary mangueboy bands are experimenting with even more diverse genres of music like electronica and techno while sampling other Northeastern traditions like embolada and rhythmic poetry jams (is that rap, we wonder...). Add to the music scene an entire cultural shift, seen on Recife's main drag as hundreds of tattooed love boys, painted face clowns and jungle warrior actors roam the streets in search of great music, and you have a cultural revolution that has made Recife a new Brazilian hotspot. It's definitely happening in Pernambuco.

"Vale Do Juca"

"Bob"

"Carimbaeo"

Cheb i Sabbah's Devotion. If you prefer a little electronic beat making with your global adventures, do check Cheb i Sabbah's Devotion. This Indian tastemaker has a fondness for sampling classic tabla, vocal and frame drum sounds over noxious sampled drum loops, but the commensurate atmosphere is at times, dizzying. Like strolling a market near the Ganges at sunset as iPod wearing masses trample you underfoot, Devotion is worth a listen--once you find your balance.

Cheb i Sabbah
"Qalanderi" (mp3)
from "Devotion"
(Six Degrees Travel Series)

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