Metalmadeira II – Pioneering Brazilian percussion/electronic fusion album re-imagined for the dancefloor

Originally released in 1983, Marco Bosco’s Metalmadeira was an innovative fusion of Brazilian percussion traditions with the emerging possibilities of electronic music. The title itself is an alliterative play on words: in Portuguese, “metalmadeira” combines metal and wood, the primary materials used in many of Bosco’s custom-built percussion instruments and the themes for the two distinct sides of the album, incorporating the sounds of nature, vocoder, synths and sequences.

Four decades later Alter Disco, with core members Bárbara Boeing, Phil Mill, and De Sena, have used those same textures and rhythms for a radical reinterpretation of the album. The collective selected key tracks from Metalmadeira to rework with contemporary electronic and dancefloor sensibilities while maintaining the spirit of the source material.

“Metalmadeira is a remarkable piece of Brazilian musical history: Raw, organic, and ahead of its time,” explains Bárbara Boeing. “Our goal was to translate that energy into a modern context without losing the album’s heartbeat and alive feeling.”

However, the original tapes were damaged, so the trio worked directly from the finished stereo recordings. “Because it was recorded without quantization [meaning the rhythms drift naturally rather than locking to a grid], it was all over the place rhythmically — but in the best way,” Phil Mill notes. “That’s what made it so exciting to merge his percussion with drum machines and beats.” The album will be released on November 14th in the United States and on November 28th for the rest of the world through Soundway Records.

The lead single, “Pedra” (co-produced by Boeing and Phil Mill), pulsates at 130 BPM with a distinctive vocoder line (one of the first ever used in Brazil) lending it an early Detroit techno feel. “With the BPM and that vocoder, I immediately thought of Juan Atkins in the early ’80s,” Phil Mill says. “It’s perfect for the dancefloor.” 

Listen for yourself in the video below.

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