More than 7 million, this is the number of views accumulated by the Portal do Beiradão channel on YouTube. Led by the musician, singer and composer Hadail Mesquita, the channel has been on the air since 2016 and... Read Article
The documentary Narcissus Off Duty (2020) is a deep dive through Caetano Veloso’s own oral history into his imprisonment from the Brazilian military dictatorship in 1968. It is a minimalistic and poignant film based mainly on Veloso’s account... Read Article
When the LA-based Brazilian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Rodrigo Amarante, delivered his first solo album Cavalo in 2014, it announced a new and genuinely original talent. Amarante had been a part of the rock group Los Hermanos, the samba... Read Article
Codirected by Ricardo Calil and Renato Terra, who had previously worked together in the documentaries A Night in 67 (2010) and I am Carlos Imperial (2016), the film is a deep dive through Caetano Veloso’s own oral history into his imprisonment from the Brazilian military dictatorship in 1968.
This month’s collection of fifteen contemporary Brazilian releases has been compiled from an almighty pool of potential albums; March and early April has proved phenomenally fertile soil. From pioneering dub to uproarious rock, angular funk and Eastern electronics,... Read Article
I arrive at Audio Rebel, in Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, and am struck by how incongruous the space is from the outside. It seems like a relatively residential area – colonial-style houses covered in graffiti are sandwiched in... Read Article
Huey Morgan’s three-part documentary series for the BBC, available to watch in the UK here, is a must-watch for anyone interested in Latin American music, the history that it embodies and the changes it has undergone through time.... Read Article
Making up for Carnaval’s cancelling, this February has seen some stellar releases from Brazil. Many on this list maintain the effervescent élan of that midsummer celebration, while even more re-frame and re-invent Brazilian cultural tradition in vivid ways.... Read Article
We’re talking ahead of the release of Neves’ hotly anticipated sophomore album A Pegada Agora É Essa (This Sway Now), due out on the UK label Far Out Recordings next Friday. But, for much of our early conversation, Neves looks to the past, rather than future, regaling with stories of a remarkable childhood.
Dorival Caymmi – The Sounds of Life (Brazil, 2019, dir. Daniela Broitman), a documentary about one of Brazil’s great twentieth-century musicians, is being shown on virtualWOMEX, an “online gateway to the global music community”. Dorival Caymmi was a... Read Article
January’s a slow month for music at the best of times – and these, most certainly are not those. In the UK, indulging in the self-deceiving ceremony of resolutions and better tomorrows, we hauled ourselves across the line... Read Article
So, here we are. 2020 is, almost, finally over. The less said about this calamitous year, the better; there’ll be no retrospective taking us through its highs and lows – no need for the typical awards ceremony throat-clearing... Read Article
