April Outlook: Brazil

Faro
19.05.2022
7 minutes Reading

Very slowly, Brazil is beginning to experience a “new normal”. In April, we had a reduced version of our traditional carnival – which had been postponed due to the pandemic – but the samba schools put on a beautiful event on the avenue while the timid “blocos da rua” were still dealing with fear of the virus. Many people are still wearing masks and there are quite a few people who stay isolated, but we all got excited with the great performances of Anitta and Pabllo Vittar in Coachella (or almost all, since Jair Bolsonaro and his gang hate Culture. Anitta even blocked the president genocidal on Twitter, something many of us did too – life is too short to waste time reading fake news about militiamen). Here is a selection of greatest hits that, most likely, will never be heard in the presidential palace, but may now be played at home.

A kind of comedic supergroup from the independent scene in Rio de Janeiro, TRIPA SECA arrives on their second album maintaining their characteristic of mixing sounds with a lot of humor. Marcelo Callado, Renato Martins, André Paixão and Melvin Ribeiro ⸻known for projects like Acabou La Tequila, Lafayette & Os Tremendões, Banda Cê (by Caetano Veloso), DoAmor, Canastra and Carbona⸻ are back with Charivari, a delightful indie rock record showcasing references to beloved bands like Mano Negra, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Cafe Tacuba, the Pixies and the Butthole Surfers. It's listening and heeding the band's request: don't fart in love.

A member of Tripa Seca and a sought-after drummer on the Brazilian scene, playing with names like Caetano Veloso, Jorge Mautner, Lucas Santtana and Arnaldo Antunes, among many others, MARCELO CALLADO also has a consistent solo career that has even attracted producer Leonardo Vinhas. , who invited him to join the project of the Faro media alliance «Unite Everything!». But we'll talk about that at the end. What matters now is to invite to listen Hiatus, Callado's fifth solo album, an album with many riffs of guitar and a poetry that searches in the waters of the sea, in the pauses and silences, in laziness and longing, the strength to move forward. ¡let's go with him!

Since the 1980s, EDU K has been at the forefront of the most anarchic band in the entire Brazilian music scene in all of history, the sensational DeFalla. Isolated in a pandemic, Edu K produced, arranged, played, wrote and sang all the songs on his new solo album (in addition to signing the cover art for the singles and all the video clips of the project), Vacinated not Boom Boom, a total pro-vaccination, anti-fascism and pro-disaster album without restrictions, but with a lot of empathy, tenderness and love for others. Released by the no less sensational label Maxilar, by Gabriel Thomaz (Autoramas).

The lead singer of one of the most beloved Brazilian mod rock groups of the 80s, IRA!, Nasi is now back with a new band, NASI E OS SPOILERS, a quartet that has released a six-track EP which features special guest Steve White (Style Council and Paul Weller) on drums at the single Feedback and Libertines drummer Gary Powel on the tracks i hate you and Ogum. It is a raw, direct, honest and well interpreted rock.

One of the main names of Brazilian progressive rock, who began his career in 1973, returned in April with a totally unreleased album after 46 years! CASA DAS MÁQUINAS launched shine on our eyes on the legendary label from Goias, Monstro Discos. In addition to the album, which was released on vinyl, the band also released a 7” vinyl compact with a bonus track: the single restart. Both (vinyl and compact) are available in the stamp's online store.

Guitarist, composer and producer well known in the Brazilian indie scene, Lucas Lippaus brings together a large team of collaborators in BR Lockdown, the soulful debut album of the TREMA project, which ranges from punk to experimental rock and indie bringing the company of members of well-known bands such as Supercordas, In Venus, Bratislava, Giallos, Twinpine(s), Deafkids and Crime Caqui, among others. An urgent album with 11 songs and almost 12 minutes in length: "I really like the 'shot' effect, something direct and fast, and causing a blow on first contact to the point of needing to repeat the experience for better absorption" explains Lippaus. To close the package, the trema project still has 11 video clips, one for each theme, all of them Bad Chinchilla productions, signed by Fábio Salvador and Paulo Valentim. Look it here.

Doctor Honoris Causa from the Federal University of Pernambuco. Awarded the Order of Cultural Merit by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, an honor she received from the then Minister Gilberto Gil. Black music diva, an epithet coined by The New York Times. The queen of the ciranda, who presents her debut album from 1977. Maria Madalena Correia do Nascimento, better known as LIA DE ITAMARACÁ, has been a ciranda singer since the 1960s, and reaches the age of 78 as the subject of an unmissable exhibition in Itaú Cultural de São Paulo (which can also be seen on the web), telling his story, talking about his inspirations and his music. We were also at the presentation concerts of the event and we tell here how it was.

In a dystopian near future in Brazil, an authoritarian government orders all black citizens to relocate to Africa, sparking chaos, protests, and an underground resistance movement that inspires the nation. This is the starting point of one of the great successes of Brazilian cinema in 2022, PROVISIONAL MEASURE, by actor and director Lázaro Ramos, a film that was boycotted by the Brazilian government, but that found strength in the public, that marked its presence in theaters by expanding the scope of the film, and its permanence in theaters. The journalist Renan Guerra wrote about Provisional Measure for Scream & Yell. Below you can see the trailer.

Live events made a strong comeback throughout the Brazilian territory, and Scream & Yell was present at various concerts and festivals. In this sequence of posts on Twitter we collected some of the records, in text and photos, that we made of the performances of Kiss and Molchat Doma throughout the country, in addition to telling how the return of the festivals Breve (Belo Horizonte), Carambola (Maceió), Balaclava (São Paulo), Circuito Musical Verão 22 (in Salvador) and Fervo de Carnaval (Recife), of which you can feel the atmosphere in the video above.

With two singles most published in April (hummingbird and somewhere) and finally the full EP, the first release from the media alliance Faro is now available on Spotify: «JOIN IT ALL!» unites Brazilian artists with musicians from Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Mexico and can also be downloaded in MP3 for free here. If you want to know what the album is like, track by track, producer Leonardo Vinhas features all the songs on the site. If there are people willing to break everything, we are here to join them.