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Watch the video of Toumani Diabaté, Arnaldo Antunes & Edgard Scandurra performing ‘Kaira’ from ‘A Curva Da Cintura’ above.

Ahead of the live show at the London edition of the Back2Black festival on 1st July, the collaboration album between Malian kora legend Toumani Diabaté and Brazilians Arnaldo Antunes and Edgard Scandurra has been getting great feedback from the UK press:

Uncut “Global fusion at its best.” 8/10
Songlines “The Music is Pure Joy” ****
Guardian “Intriguing… swings between cool balladry and stomping rock workouts” ****
Metro “Bamako’s Blues, meanwhile, blows the roof off” ****
Telegraph “Gutteral romanticism and Diabate’s tinkling ornamentations delightfully cohere” ***
Financial Times ****

Recorded in 2011 in Toumani Diabaté’s studio Malian, the project first came together at the 2010 edition of the Brazilian festival Back2Black where Diabaté joined Antunes and Scandurra in Rio for what was the start of this unique collaboration.

Toumani’s sublime kora is the perfect contrast to Arnaldo’s sombre almost mechanical voice and adds a poignancy to ballads such as ‘Grao de chaos’, ‘Psiu’ and Toumani’s composition ‘Kaira’. With Toumani leading the ballads, his son Sidiki features on the album’s more lively numbers. His rapid kora playing intertwines with Edgard’s guitar to propel both the title track and ‘Cara’ forward, whilst the opening track sees him modulating his kora with wah-wah proving he has the pioneering spirit of his father.

UK LIVE SHOWS

1st July 2012 – Back2Black Festival – Old Billingsgate Market – London http://www.barbican.org.uk/back2black/

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LISTEN: A Curva Da Cintura – ‘Kaira’

Yes! You read that right! We are proud to announce the release of the cross-continent collaboration between Malian kora legend Toumani Diabaté and Brazilian legends, Arnaldo Antunes and Edgard Scandurra on the 11th June. A European tour begins with the trio performing at the London Back2Black Festival at the Old Billingsgate Market on 1 July.

Following a collaboration at the 2010 edition of the Brazilian festival Back2Black, Toumani Diabaté invited Brazilian songwriter and poet Arnaldo Antunes and guitar-hero Edgard Scandurra to Mali to record with him. Toumani’s sublime kora playing is the perfect contrast to Arnaldo’s sombre almost mechanical voice and adds a poignancy to ballads such as ‘Grao de chaos’, ‘Psiu’ and Toumani’s composition ‘Kaira’. With Toumani leading the ballads, his son Sidiki features on the album’s more lively numbers.

Arnaldo and Edgard arrived in Mali in April 2011 with a collection of songs they had written together. With the Malian musicians they combined rock ‘n’ roll, African roots and blues to create an uplifting Afro-Brazilian fusion that celebrates the spirit of collaboration and connects Mali and Brazil in a way that blurs geographical and musical boundaries.

UK LIVE SHOWS

1st July 2012 – Back2Black Festival – Old Billingsgate Market – London: http://www.barbican.org.uk/back2black/

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Lucas on tour in Europe this month & remix EP released with mixes from Joao Brasil, Burnt Friedman, DJ iZem & Alexandre Coutinho

When he’s not launching plagiarism lawsuits against Madonna (bit.ly/zBeAuV) Joao Brasil produces dynamic Brazilian-tinged bass music, here turning Lucas’s rousing ‘Who can say which way’ into an old school Miami-bass tinged funk-carioca banger. German-based Burnt Friedman is intent on blending the history of electronic music with dub and jazz and his remix turns ‘Ca Pra Nos’ into an ethereal, pulsating, percussive groove.

A relatively new name on the scene, yet already a favourite of Gilles Peterson, DJ iZem pulls ‘Hold me in’ apart reconfiguring it as a neo-soul jam recorded in a galaxy far, far away. Finally, Brazilian producer Alexandre Coutinho adds layers of percussion to ‘O Violao de Mario Bros’ to create a stuttering, splintered work-out.

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Compiled by Alessandra Leão & Mais Um Gringo ‘Mais Um Discos presents Mangue-Folk’ profiles the most innovative artists from Brazil’s vibrant new folk scene from the northeast.

From aguere de ode to baião to coco, ‘Mangue-Folk’ is a journey through the A-B-C of folk styles from the northeast of Brazil – ciranda, baianado/coco, baião, coco-rojão & aguere de ode.

Mangue-folk is from the state of Pernambuco and in particular capital city Recife – famous for its mangues – swamps – and also as the home of Nacao Zumbi. The artists on this EP all imbue Northern Brazilian folk music with the proud spirit of Mangue-beat – listen & download here:

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We were proud to get our favourite Amazonian electro-pop star Miss Gaby Amarantos in The Guardian’s prized ‘New Band of the Day’ slot – pimp it here!

Gaby features on two tracks on the latest in our digital download series ‘Electro-Amazonas’ which you can check here:

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Check out some forthcoming music from us on the mix we did for Gilles Peterson’s international radio show. Tracklist is here:

Worldwide Family Mixtape – Mais Um Discos
Graveola e o Lixo Polifonico – Desencontro (Mais Um Discos)
Siba – Canoa Furada (Mais Um Discos)
Tulipa – Pedrinho (Totolo)
Jam Da Silva – Mania (Mais Um Discos)
M Takara 3 – Anticope (Desmonta)
Lucas Santtana – Cira, Regina e Nana (Jaloo remix) (Mais Um Discos)
Gaby Amarantos – Xirley (CDR)
Os Mutantes – Vida de Cachorro (Philips)

…and you can stream it here

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We were honoured that Gilles Peterson nominated our debut release ‘Oi! A Nova Musica Brasileira!’ as his ‘Compilation of the year new music’ for 2011. Gilles was the one who got us into Brazilian music in the first place so it’s a real honour to receive this accolade.

You can buy ‘Oi! A Nova Musica Brasileira! from our store where each purchase comes with a free fly poster (96cm x 66cm) printed from the woodcut we commissioned Brazilian street artist Derlon Almeida to produce for the album artwork and which we had printed by Sao Paulo’s legendary Grafica Fidalga print workshop (big thanks to Brazilian art gallery Choque Cultural).

With prices for Derlon’s prints starting online at £75 this is not an offer to be sniffed at – and these posters are limited to our webstore only. Here’s one:

You can watch a video about the beautiful work Grafica Fidalga do below, and buy your album with free poster here

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Oi! Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone for the support in 2011. So many highlights this year – amazing reaction to the release of our debut artist album from Lucas Santtana ‘Sem Nostalgia’, ‘Oi! A Nova Musica…’ being named by Gilles Peterson as his favourite compilation of the year, Mais Um Gringo DJing after Tom Ze…

We have copies of both ‘Oi!’ and ‘Sem Nostalgia’ available from our store – Lucas’s CD comes with a bonus ‘voices and guitars’ DJ mix and copies of ‘Oi!’ come with one of the promo posters we printed in Sao Paulo from Brazilian artist Derlon Almeida (see above).

And just wait till you see what we’ve got planned for 2012! More news in the new year. Abracao forte para todos!

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“Sonic provocateur Santtana subjects (bossa nova) to an adventurous, discordant deconstruction, employing every acoustic and electronic means at his disposal…”
The Telegraph, August 2011

“Sambas laced with samples, a reggae-tinged instrumental, droll songs in English, dub-trickery… Santtana’s innovative approach makes for a refreshing excursion” The Observer, August 2011

We are proud to announce our debut artist album – Lucas Santtana’s ‘Sem Nostalgia’ – released in the UK on 29th August,

Describing by The Wire magazine as an artist characterised by his “restless cosmopolitanism”, Lucas Santtana is one of the most interesting, dynamic and experimental singer-songwriter-producers from the ‘new generation’ of South American electro-acoustic musicians.

On ‘Sem Nostalgia’ Lucas has used only guitars, voices and ambient sound processed via samplers, pedals, filters and non-conventional recording techniques to re-imagine the sonic possibilities of these instruments and create a haunting, disorientating and forward thinking modern electro-acoustic masterpiece.

Partly inspired by João Gilberto’s ‘Chega De Saudade’ – an album that laid down the foundation for bossa nova on its release in 1959 – with ‘Sem Nostalgia’ Lucas has torn up the bossa nova rulebook to bring this tradition slap bang into the 21st century. ‘Sem Nostalgia’ is available to buy from our store now – initial copies come with a bonus “Voices and Guitars” mix featuring tracks that influenced the album.

Equal parts Thom Yorke and Tom Zé, Lucas was discovered by Tropicalistas and fellow Bahians Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso in his early twenties, he toured with them both in the mid 90s, and their eclectic style is also one of Santtana’s trademarks. He subsequently worked with musical mavericks Chico Science (Nação Zumbi) and Arto Lindsay (his current song-writing partner), and at the turn of the century released his debut album ‘Eletro Ben Dodô’, followed in 2003 by ‘Parada de Lucas’. Both these albums saw Lucas successfully experiment with Brazilian styles via mainly electronic processes and were warmly received in and outside of Brazil. In 2006 he released ‘3 Sessions In A Greenhouse’; a fusion of Afro-Brazilian rhythms, samba, rock, funk and dub it saw him come to the fore as a songwriter, crafting memorable hooks within an experimental framework – a sound he has perfected on ‘Sem Nostalgia’.

Lucas will tour Europe this October and November – dates to be announced soon…

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Carnaval in Brasil finished last week. As per usual, coverage in the UK focused solely on Rio’s spectacular affair; with countless images of scantily clad dancers and the odd celebrity (apparently Jude Law was paid £300,000 by beer sponsor Brahma to attend this year!), the metro’s coverage was typical.

Rio’s carnaval is however just one of hundreds that happen across Brasil and here I’ve pulled together links to pictures, video and music from those that happened across the country – in Recife, Belo Horizonte, Bahia and Macapa.

We’ll start in Rio – yet this is no glitzy bloco – in fact these guys would probably draw more fans in the UK than anywhere else. Let me to introduce you to the sensational Bloco do Sargento Pimenta - the Bloco of Sergeant Pepper. They only perform songs by the Fab Four and here are two killer clips from them. The first is them in a practise session performing ‘Sgt Pepper’s Maracatu’ and then a great video shot by a fan who was right in amongst them as they perform ‘Twist and Shout’ during the carnaval – pure goosebumps! I’m with them next year!

Next we head over to Belo Horizonte to check out Carnavaliza BH! – a collective of local musicians who recorded new carnaval-inspired compositions in tribute to their carnaval. The video for their track ‘Marchinha da Alcova’ below has some nice carnaval after-party vibes…

Get your own carnival started by buying the entire album on download here for only $5. It features ‘Marchinha da Alcova’ above plus the perky ‘Filhos de Chachá’ from ‘Oi!’ Contributors Graveola & many other future carnaval classics.

Recife-Olinda is one of Brasil’s biggest carnavals and here’s some footage of local hero DJ Dolores tearing it up with his newly-reformed Orquestra Santa Massa proving that they’ve lost none of their original fire:

Click here for some great street-shots of Recife’s carnaval taken by Beto Figueiroa (his photo is at the top of this piece) and here for photos from Recbeat – the music festival that runs alongside Recife’s carnaval – taken by their official photographer Caroline Bittencourt, including this rather fetching one of Ceu…

From Recife we head back down south to Paraty for this video of revellers getting in the spirit of the Bloco do Lama – the Mud bloco!

Here’s a nice selection of images from the carnaval in Macapa in the far north of the country – a more low key affair than the others but as you can see from the photo below still plenty to see…

Brazil’s biggest pop star Ivete Sangolo was in Bahia – here she is performing a surprisingly catchy slice of synth-axe that’s something to do with Superman:

And then finally we head back to Rio for some spooky goings-on courtesy of the Comissão de Frente da Unidos da Tijuca – many people considered them robbed of the first prize in the carnaval procession for their expertly synchronised performance:

Till next year, or if you’re in London, Notting Hill in August!

(Thanks to Vanessa Gabriel, Mariana Robles & Luiz Gabriel Lopes for sending over links and Caroline Bittencourt, Beto Figueiroa and Gavin Andrews for letting us use their photos)

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