Chico Science & Nação Zumbi

Da Lama Ao Caos

Chico Science & Nação Zumbi's debut album represents a seismic shift in Brazilian music from the '60s tropicalia generation headed by Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, and Caetano Veloso. Da Lama Ao Caos is a revelation, an organic fusion of the forceful maracatú rhythm from the Recife region delivered by massed surdo drums with overlays of metal-tinged hard rock or James Brown-style rhythm guitar, Chico Science's convincing rap vocals, and the creative sensibility of the dub/mix generation. The opening monologue's twanging berimbau and pounding drums set the tone before sweeping seamlessly into the power chords married to funk-riffing attack on "Banditismo por Uma Questão de Classe." "A Praieira" is centered on a staggered riff that drops down into the parade drumming perfectly and "Côco Dub (Afrociberdelia)" is a savvy maiden voyage into dubwise sound science. The artfully layered arrangements and impeccable command of dynamics enables the group to shift gears from the funky "Samba Makossa" to the title track's heavy guitar without missing a beat. Lino Maia's guitar is savagely intelligent throughout, the fierce rhythmic undertow never lets up, and Chico Science's staccato vocal bursts fit the musical framework like a glove. Rarely can you point to an album as the definitive marker of a change in musical generations, but the new Brazil started with Da Lama Ao Caos.

Gal Costa

Gal Costa is an awarded singer with an extensive solo discography and international experience. A fundamental presence in the Tropicalia movement, she has been in Brazil's leading team of singers for decades. Since very young, she has been involved with music as a singer and violão player; when her mother's business broke she became a record shop attendant, where he spent long hours listening to music, especially João Gilberto. She became acquainted with Caetano Veloso in 1963, and friendly disputed him as boyfriend with her girlfriend Dedé, who would later be Caetano's wife. In 1964, Caetano was invited to organize a Brazilian popular music show at the opening of Salvador's Teatro Vila Velha. The show, called Nós, por Exemplo, brought Caetano, his sister Maria Bethânia, Gilberto Gil, and Costa (still under her name Maria da Graça). The show was a success and was re-enacted two weeks later, with the addition of Tom Zé (still presented as Antônio José). The success was even bigger, and the group (withoutTom) soon presented another show, Nova Bossa Velha, Velha Bossa Nova.

Fatal Gal A Todo Vapor (1971)

A Todo Vapor is a really fascinating live document of Gal Costa from the early '70s where she proved to be as exciting and diverse on-stage as she was at that time in the studio. The first seven tracks (of 18) feature Costa alone, accompanied by only her own acoustic guitar and the performances are dramatic, intimate, precise, emotional, and stunningly clear. These tracks display her voice perfectly, pushing up front all of the natural characteristics of Costa's incredibly strong pipes in with the urgent beauty one can only obtain from a live performance. A Todo Vapor would've been a fine set with only these tracks, but the real treat comes in about halfway through the eight-minute epic, "Vapor Barato," when out of nowhere, her band joins in and turns the slow, intimate descending progression into a scorching lament with Costa wailing over the top, showcasing her impressive dexterity and emotional fervor. This intensity and incredible form continue throughout the rest of the recording; the band is tight and progressive, experimental and dynamic -- actually quite mad -- similar to her band on her two self-titled records from 1969, so it's no surprise that the group brings inconceivable brilliance to "Pérola Negra," "Chuva, Suor E Cerveja," and others as well as churning out a particularly inspired version of "Hotel das Estrelas." The recording quality isn't bad for the time, but it does suffer from some poor editing between songs. Still, A Todo Vapor is a great document to add to further expand the character of Gal Costa.

  

Recanto (2012) 

Gal Costa, one of the greatest and most exquisite Brazilian female singers of all time, has released what is arguably the most daring album of her four-decade career. Recanto was masterminded by life-long friend Caetano Veloso, who should be considered as much an author of this album as Costa. In fact, sonically and lyrically, Recanto clearly belongs with Veloso's recent infatuation with noise rock and electronica, begun on Cê (2006) and further pursued onZii e Zie (2009). Of course, Veloso is one of those artists who has devoted his life to pulverizing creative boundaries, so even if he is pushing 60, another left turn was always in the cards. Not so much for his contemporary Costa, who, aside from a brief spell as the muse of the Tropicália movement in the late '60s, has generally been a mainstream MPB performer (and lately quite the classicist, too). It should be noted that even if Costa and Veloso have collaborated plenty of times in the past, Recanto is a very different sort of proposition. While Veloso is one of Brazil's foremost songwriters, and Costa has performed countless numbers of his compositions, he has rarely written an entire album for another artist, as he does here. Most crucially, these are not the type of songs Veloso uses to write specifically for a female singer (for instance, Costa's "Dom de Iludir" or Maria Bethânia's "Mel"). Rather, this sounds like a Caetano Veloso album sung by Gal Costa. Recanto is also a strikingly oppressive album in Costa's canon, courtesy ofVeloso's grim observations on the human condition today, and of the menacing beats and surging electric guitars contributed by the same team Veloso has assembled for his latest aesthetic reincarnation, the one formed by his sons Moreno and Zeca Veloso, and Kassim. As a result, hearing Costa's timeless voice in an electronica setting punctured with bursts of feedback, delivering Veloso's hermetic musings, can come as quite a shock. Still, Recanto works much better than Veloso's recent albums, chiefly because Costa's voice adds a sense of longing and humanity to what is essentially a cerebral, quasi-robotic work. In fact, if there is one single regret about Recanto, it is that Costa does not sing more, as later-day Veloso's compositions are closer to concrete-poetry-monologue than a melody; better as ideas than as songs. Not surprisingly, Costa sounds more like herself on the only two covers here: "Mansidão," a 1982 hit for Jane Duboc featuring Daniel Jobim on piano, and Duplexx's "Madre Deus" (even if the latter has a furious distortion intermezzo), but it is not here that Recanto achieves its significance. The album's greatness comes from its bold, uncompromising conception and execution, and above all, from how those ideas are shaped into captivating pieces of music. The first track, "Recanto Escuro," sounds like a stunning Tropicalia version of Portishead, and is graced by one of the album's best poems: the supremely ironic "Autotune Erotico" toys with Costa's gorgeous voice and lyrically updates Jobim's "Desafinado" for the computer age; "Neguinho" offers a devastating portrait of the rampant consumerism among Brazil's black population -- a far cry from the political activism and optimism of Veloso and Gilberto Gil's youth -- set to an automated, soulless disco beat. It may not always work, and it may certainly not sound at all like the everyman idea of Brazilian music, but Recanto is a formidable work that both confirms and renovates the thoroughly deserved legendary stature of its creators.