June 2014
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Now this album, will always bar none, remain at the top of any list of best Brazilian albums ever made. Chico Buarque’s “Construção”, released in 1971, just bleeds and demonstrates Brazil exactly as it is, warts and all. Chico had always been around from the early 60s, from a young age he knew what kind…
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Remember how I said yesterday to pay attention to some of the peripheral characters during the Tropicalia documentaries? Well, today I’m going to bring a little bit of light into the first person to push Brazilian music beyond this era. Edu Lobo, on the day of the great festival of Brazilian music where Tropicalia had…
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After yesterday’s white knuckle soccer match between the US and Ghana I needed proper time for reflection. Sometimes when a match like that occurs, I tend to miss important details. On second viewing I realized the importance of having a deep bench and having periphery players step up. Brazilian music after Tropicalia, much like our…
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The US men’s national team plays Ghana today in the World Cup. One of the things I love about the World Cup is that countries can’t just draft better players to compete. You have to work with what you have. At times, you may not have players that earn the most money in the world,…
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Some may classify what I’m going to highlight today as psychedelic or weird, I refuse to do so. Sometimes, we forget that some of the most outre music, the one that challenges our orthodoxy, has always existed not in the outre monde but in the clear, visible world and has always been the actual current…
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Track of the Day, World Cup Edition: Joao Gilberto, whatever I say about the man won’t amount to equal the personal admiration I have for him. This is a man, born in Bahia, who from a young age was unlocking the essence of oneness with the world. If Tom opened his eyes to the world,…
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Track of the Day, World Cup Edition: Guess what starts today? The World Cup of course. If ever there was a draft to represent Brazil in the game of music Jorge Ben would undoubtedly be its number 10, its Pele, its futbol creative playmaker. I don’t say this lightly, but if anyone figured out God’s…
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Track of the Day: On Monday the US Soccer men’s national team descended into São Paulo kicking off their final week of World Cup preparation before next Monday’s super important opening match against Ghana. I can only imagine what the sensation of arriving into the largest city in Brazil could entail. Its such a fixture…
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Another artist that truly knew his way around using Brazilian music to a different end was Michael Franks. Heavily mustachioed, more than a bit lecherous at times, but when tempered with his obvious talent knew how to create some of the smoothest Brazilian-inflected R&B jazz…one that would serve as a big influence on artists like…
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The following tracks of the day before Thursday are all preludes to my full out month long dive into Brazilian music. I say this because my track of the day Captain Beyond’s “Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Time Since Come and Gone)” touches on something I’ve been worried about. I sometimes wonder where all the great…
ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental folk-rock fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic