Ajítẹnà Marco Scarassatti  Isto dando Samba: A Sounds & Colours Album premiere

Recorded over a 4 year period, Isto dando Samba is a meeting point between tradition and experimentation. The project emerged from the composer and conceptualist Scarassatti’s long-standing desire to create experimental music using instruments associated with samba, with the result being a complete deconstruction of the genre. Each of the participants, including Juçara Marçal, Negro Leo, and Inés Terra, was sent an audio-score of a guitar recording. The proposal was to create a dialogue between an allusion to samba and the freedom of experimentation in relation to the audio-score. Samba appears in spirit, in the timbres of the instruments: the pandeiro, cuíca, and cavaquinho, but the pieces are rearranged with an improvisor’s vision, to create a new exploratory version.

A clear predecessor is Estudando o Samba, the seminal album by Tom Zé, where he mixed musique concrète with samba composition. The title Isto dando Samba plays with that legacy while evoking the genre through sound and gesture.

The album is the second release by Outra Musica, a brand new label from São Paulo. The first release was the excellent Pesadelo Ambicioso by Fausto Fawcett & Chelpa Ferro, a torrent of experimental electronics and hyper-urban spoken word. I spoke to the label’s head Chico Dub, curator of the Novas Frequencias festival in Rio, about his plans for the label.

S&C: So, why a label now?

Chico Dub: Running a label has been a long-time dream. One I’ve had, let go of, and returned to countless times throughout my trajectory. I think anyone who truly works with music has probably felt this at some point, right? 

But to answer your question more directly: after so many years running the festival, I started to feel the need to get closer to other parts of the music ecosystem. Not just putting on shows, but also releasing records, supporting careers, and engaging with the creative process itself. Being closer to the artists, in a real way.

I see the label both as a natural extension of the festival and as a complementary platform. On one hand, it allows us to give continuity to projects that emerge through Novas Frequências — many of which I have documented and (are) ready to take on new forms.

On the other hand, the flow can also work in reverse: releasing an album through the label and then presenting its launch show within the festival. There is, therefore, a clear articulation between these fronts. Not to mention the booking agency, which further expands this ecosystem by enabling commissioned projects and special formats for the artists we work with.

S&C: How do you find the releases?

CD: In the case of the first release, Pesadelo Ambicioso, by Fausto Fawcett and Chelpa Ferro, this dialogue dates back to 2021, when we presented the first version of the work as a 16.2 sound installation in Brasília, at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil.  It later evolved into a live performance, then into an album, and continues to unfold through new presentations. It’s a work that can mutate into multiple formats.

As for Isto Dando Samba, it comes from a close relationship with Ajítẹnà Marco Scarassatti — someone I deeply admire and whose work I follow closely. We could have explored other projects still in development, but we ultimately agreed that Samba was the strongest project for the label at this moment.

S&C: What was it about Isto Dando Samba that caught your ear?

CD: Could it be precisely the fact that it is, essentially, a samba record approached through an experimental lens?

Since 2023, when we presented the 13th edition of Novas Frequências — thematically inspired by Carnival and co-curated with Nathalia Grilo and KENYA20HZ — I’ve become increasingly interested in the intersections between Brazilian popular music and the practices and techniques developed within experimental music. That kind of crossing is still relatively rare here, believe it or not — dogmas can run deep in this country.

S&C: what can the label offer that self-releasing cannot?

CD: Through Outra Música, I’m able to offer other layers of support: putting a beautifully produced vinyl record in their hands — which, in Brazil, is anything but simple — while also working on live bookings, promotion, and press.

At the same time, I feel the project can — and should — grow. At the moment, it’s a very lean operation, essentially just me and Davi Maia, juggling multiple roles and keeping many plates spinning at once. In a way, the artists are part of this experiment — and so are we.

S&C: What are the biggest challenges you face in the current rapidly changing musical climate?

CD: One of the biggest challenges is structural. In Brazil, cultural investment has long been shaped by an almost invisible mediator: the marketing departments of large corporations. It’s within ROI spreadsheets and audience reports that decisions are made about which artists get on stage, which festivals survive, and which cultural narratives receive visibility. As a result, culture is often driven far more by corporate logic than by creative impulse.

In the post-pandemic context, this dynamic has intensified. The return of in-person events attracted a wave of new investors to the live music and festival market — many from outside the cultural field, entering not out of a commitment to artistic risk, but in search of quick profit.

This has significantly narrowed the space for the new and the experimental. We are living in a moment where only what is large-scale seems to hold value, while anything that speaks to smaller audiences — niche festivals, independent scenes — is increasingly seen as irrelevant. And, in practical terms, the situation is even more critical: there is simply no longer meaningful public or private funding available to sustain live experimental music in Brazil.

S&C: Beyond surviving, what are your future plans?

CD: If everything goes as planned, we should release two or three more records by the end of the year: an improvisation project (guitar, drums, sax, wind, and electronics) from Minas Gerais; a rap and electronic music release from Rio/São Paulo (blending beats from different genres with live instrumentation); and a black metal record from Brasília (with an atmospheric, folk-leaning approach).

S&C: Thank you Chico and good luck!

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