The good stuff that won’t quite make the cut for my 2023 wrap up. Plus a stinker or two.
ÀTTØØXXÁ, Groove – One hundred percent black music, the cover promises, and as long as you’re not silly enough to think that’s just a North American thing, the album delivers. Producer Rafa Dias and his bandmates put Bahia front and center in their international dance music, so it manages to fit contemporary dance music aesthetics while remaining thoroughly and proudly Brazilian. If the 13 tracks begin to sound samey, well old people like me aren’t the audience, and those who are are probably too busy partying to care about living room listening observations. Grade: B
Besouro Mulher, Volto Amanhã – Here Sophia Chablau treads similar poppy Brazilian alt-rock territory to her other band, albeit without the songs to match her best band’s best record. Grade: B-
Bivolt, Chave – Three albums into a promising career, she seems stuck at that point: another album pressing up against that border between good and great that fails to break through it. Absolutely nothing wrong with the very good hip hop here, but sometimes you get greedy for the more you sense is just around the corner. Grade: B
Bru._.Jo, Bru._.Jo – Electronic musician Bruno Qual teams with clarinetist Joana Queiroz. Qual basically adds texture and atmosphere around Queiroz’s clarinet, which remains the star of the show. Where on Tempo Sem Tempo, she let her lines flow as she explored temporality, here structural minimalism is the target: everything is compact and smashed together. While her tone remains hypnotic, the structures often hem her in too much. Interesting? Smart? Of course. Beautiful? Sometimes. Compelling? Hmmm. Grade: B
Carla Boregas, Pena ao Mar – RAKTA member and São Paulo experimental scene fixture, Boregas has trended toward electronic minimalism lately, and in this release hardly anything happens. In a good way, mostly. It’s easy for this music to slip past your consciousness so deeply it doesn’t register at all, and if you just sit there an listen actively, it can get boring. But Boregas finds that difficult spot between attention and background where the swooshes and buzzes can sizzle as you hear/not hear them. So for writing or grading it pulls you slightly away from the task at hand, but not in a way that keeps you from working, while at the same time keeping the mind locked in to the work that needs doing by staving off the boredom. It’s a neat trick. Grade: B
Fabiana Cozza, Urucungo – Here she backs off the Afro part of Afro-Brazilian music she explored so engagingly on Dos Santos and makes a straight, accomplished samba album. All of which is fine because she’s really good at this stuff. But fine isn’t great, and last time out she was pretty fantastic. Plus, when you’re this classy you risk stuffiness, so the beatier the better. Grade: B
Dadá Joãozinho, Tds Bem Global – Band plans upended by the pandemic, singer João Rocha decided to make a solo album. Taking Rosabege’s funk-lite and adding texture, depth, and a twist of angst, Rocha makes music that passes pleasant into something more engaging. The downside is that his songwriting hasn’t gotten that much better, so this 27 minute work devolves into experiments and snippets by the end. Even those have merit, but the three tracks that open this mini-album are so strong, you wish the rest had come closer to keeping up. Grade: B-
Ema Stoned, Devaneio – Minus collaborators Doug Leal and Makoto Kawabata, Al Duarte (guitar), Elke Lamers (bass) and new drummer Theo Charbel still manage to create engaging instrumental rock. But the real loss is drummer’s Jéssica Fulganio’s beats to steer the ship. Without her guiding hands this good record can’t match 2018’s terrific Phenomena. Grade: B
Clarice Falcão, Truque – Given her background in comedy, her start as a folkie and her transition to more electronic musics, it’s tempting to see Falcão as Brazil’s Juana Molina, but she’s not quite working at that level of achievement. What she does do, however, is write and perform a solid set of songs. The disco flourishes here are nearly as good as Bala Desejo and if in some objective, critical sense Ana Frango Elétrico’s somewhat overpraised attempt to do something similar is better I’d rather listen to this because the fun sounds, well, actually fun. Grade: B
Zé Ibarra, Marques, 256 – Bala Desejo was a party, but here Ibarra’s wandered off solo moping in that sad-but-beautiful Brazilian way, which may be your thing, but isn’t mine except when it’s ace. Quality stuff in it’s way, but only when he covers Milton Nascimento on the final track does it soar the way you hope it will. Grade: C+
Lupe de Lupe, Um Tijolo Com Seu Nome – Rock band from Minas Gerais whose members include Jonathan Tadeu and Vitor Brauer. In ten years they’ve been all over the place sonically, but here they zero in on a punky fast attack that finally delivers the goods. Twenty four songs in 44 minutes that might have been twice as effective at half the length—it does wear you out—they still have more life and maybe even smarts than almost any English-language rock retread you can name these days. Grade: B
Xande de Pilares, Xande Canta Caetano – It takes some kind of chutzpah to do a tribute to one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. The good news for Pilares is the songs are surefire. It would take real effort to come up with a dud tribute based on that fact alone. But, of course, he can’t compete vocally. Which isn’t to say he embarrasses himself. He’s fine. The album’s fine. But unless you are going to interpret as radically and smartly as Filipe Catto did with Gal Costa or Romulo Fróes did Nelson Cavaquinho even a fine tribute raises the question of utility when you can just as easily hear the original. Grade: B-
Ianaê Régia, Afroglow – In a year where I heard a lot of Brazilian R&B, singer Régia stood out. Helps the lead track is hooked with fetching guitar that adds some roughage to the slick funk. Helps, too, that she knows how to sing so she darts, dives or glides at just the right moments. And 26 minutes is a good length: she doesn’t leave herself space to stumble like a lot of her peers did. If she doesn’t break new ground, she covers what others have with verve. Let’s see if she can take this somewhere longer term. Grade: B
João Selva, Passarinho – Retro ’70s MPB with a Jorge Ben bent. If you want new music that scratches an old itch, you could do much, much worse. Grade: B-
Som Imaginario, Banda da Capital – Live vault find from the legendary band who backed Milton Nascimento as well as released their own acclaimed albums. Plenty of aimless noodling that mostly provides evidence for those who think the ’70s sucked. Grade: D
Tangolo Mangos, Garantujas – Pandemic over, they can get together again and make a proper album, which means they play it straighter than they they did on 2020’s tngl_mngs.rar EP, which is somewhat unfortunate. There are still twists and turns and a sense of humor, and it’s better than your average prog rock because they don’t make technical finesse the point. But they were better off when they let the weirdness push them further out on the limb. Grade: B-
Zudizilla, Quarta Parede. Vol. 3 – Fifth album from rapper from Pelotas in Brazil’s southernmost state. Goes hard, goes jazzy, goes where he needs with the ease and confidence of a pro. The hoarse edge of his voice adds some roughness to his flow. Nothing groundbreaking. Just well done. Grade: B