With all eyes on Brazil this past month, our television sets have not only been dominated by the football pitch but also the sounds of samba and bossa nova. Both of these are Brazilian musical genres that are popularly associated with the country, samba particularly so. However, the dominance of these sounds can lead one to believe that Brazil is a musically singular country. This would be a fallacy and would ultimately be a disservice to a country that is the same size as the US and harbours just as diverse an array of sounds, with Brazil in recent years witnessing a particular flourishing of electronic music. If you’re looking for an alternative to that god-awful Pitbull song that is the official anthem of this World Cup (he’s not even Brazilian), here are some artists worth checking out.
The beautiful game may move to a samba beat, but the artists below show that Brazil itself is much more than a land of just football, favelas and forests. Manara’s Ihnteractions came out earlier this year on the Rio-based label Domina, as its first release. While the album retains a Latin edge through what can be described at times as decidedly off-kilter percussion (likely inspired by the non-dominance of four-to-the-floor rhythms in traditional dance music of South American origin), in tone it easily fits alongside Joy O or Darkside as an album of dark leftfield techno. Simultaneously, Mantara manages to be both sinister and euphoric for the duration of the album, with darkness and light twisting around each other throughout. Highlights are the ghostly Circlo, mechanic Downtown 500 and the piano-driven closing track, Man, Mytho. The album is currently free to download from the label’s bandcamp page, but downloads are capped at 200 so get on that sooner rather than later!
The Brazilian producer Secchin has remained relatively quiet since putting out his debut single, Night Lights, last year. His brand of warm, pulsating electronica is reminiscent of our own MMOTHS, or Girraffage. The song features the vocal talents of Maria Luiza Jobim, herself the daughter of Tom Jobim, an originator of that signature Brazilian sound bossa nova in the 50s and 60s. There is no trace of her father’s influence in this song however, with Night Lights being a glistening piece of pop music coated in an electronic fuzz with no element in particular being an obvious tie to Brazil or Latin America in general.
Rio Shock describe themselves as “deep baile”, baile funk being a type of Brazilian music that originated in the 1980s as a derivative of Miami Bass. However their colourful new song, Rio Pump, is essentially 90s throwback house, right down to the music video. The bassline is killer and the song is punctuated by a funky trumpet sample. If you’re looking for World Cup inspired party tunes then these are the guys to turn to. This single can also be downloaded for free simply by giving the band a “like” on their Facebook page, and their self-titled EP of yesteryear is also worth checking out.
As such, instead of simply perpetuating the stereotypical view of Brazil and Brazilian music that we hold in our heads perhaps our televisions would be better trying to allow some of the more modern sounds of Brazil to filter through to our sets. Even this article just scratches the surface, only highlighting some of the more interesting acts to emerge recently on the electronic spectrum. Brazil is a country with a rich and diverse history, and this is perhaps best represented in its music, which as seen above shows itself to be forward-thinking while simultaneously showing an awareness of its own heritage.
