The Panorama Lighthouse is a section that is responsible for highlighting the most important releases in Ibero-America and is published simultaneously in all the media that make up the alliance, thus multiplying its reach and visibility. Every delivery updates us on the struggles in each of our countries, currently going through the reality of COVID-19, and on the news of their musical ecosystems. As we always say, there is much to discover out there. If you want to know what the region sounds like today, this is the place and the time.

Lighthouse is composed of IndieToday (Argentina), sounds from here (Bolivia), Scream&Yell (Brazil), shock (Colombia), Magazine AM:PM (Cuba),  POTQ (Chili), Sound World and Construction Area (Spain), Indie Rocks! (Mexico), Rock Achorao' (Peru) and Piiila (Uruguay). It also works to create original and innovative content, as well as various activities that serve to break down borders and build bridges between the different countries of Ibero-America.

Brazil

By Marcelo Costa / Scream & Yell

February is an extraordinary month for the Brazilian people: it is the month of Carnival, a party that is in their DNA. In 2022, however, Carnival was canceled in most cities due to the unavoidable risk of Covid-19 transmissions. That leaves us with a huge emptiness in our chest –we have the joke that the year only begins in Brazil after Carnival–; a year without Carnival makes a knot in our soul. But this is all for the greater good, so that we (and our children) can enjoy many carnivals in the future. In any case, the holiday marked some of the February releases, as you can read below. 

Born in the south of Brazil, in Florianópolis, but rooted "forever" in Maceió, in the Northeast region, Wado is one of the most unique artists of Brazilian independent music. It has a brilliant discography who in February added his 13th solo album: Wado eo Bloco dos Bairros Distantes em: o Disco Mais Feliz do Mundo, Vol. 1, in which he offers a polyrhythmic mix that shows versions for songs by Ava Rocha, Russo Passapusso, C. Tangana, Herivelto Martins, Moraes Moreira and A Cor do Som. To listen and smile. 

The musician, composer and presenter Chinaina presents Vinganca Carnival, an album that unites aesthetics hardcore to the frevo of Recife and seeks "revenge for everything bad that has happened to us", explains the musician. The EP's repertoire includes new songs and re-recordings of two of his best-known compositions: Deixe-se Accredit, included in Mombojó's debut album (4th best Brazilian album of the 00s as voted by Scream & Yell), and Brazilian Hardcore, Sheik Tosado, his old band. To play in the middle of the street.

One of the big names in Brazilian music in 2021, with singles anticipating the strength to come on her second solo album, the singer and drag queen Gloria Groove finally released Lady Leste, an album geared towards the dance floor and the party. The album has a bit of everything – funk, pagode, pop, reggaeton, rap – but maintains an incredible unity, showing that Gloria and producers Pablo Bispo and Ruxell have carefully planned this second step for the artist. 

Fernando Catatau is the brilliant mind behind one of the most sensational bands in Brazilian music of this century, Cidadão Instigado. Now, on his self-titled solo debut, exposes all the tension that has always been present in his band, albeit in an ambient way, in an album that penetrates the skin like a sharp needle. One of the author composers whose musical signature is known in the way he plays his guitar and sings, Catatau has made an album to be discovered little by little, something rare in such an immediate world. Trust: the discovery will be pleasant.

One of the biggest names in the Brazilian experimental scene, Cadu Tenório is one of those interesting artists that, when he releases something, we have to stop everything we're doing to take the time and listen to him. This time, Cadu offers a 43-minute piece that sounds like an ambient lament in homage to a recent personal loss. Tear it is a deep immersion in the perceptions of the spaces left by those who are no longer there, something quite strong in these sad times that we still live in.

A big band from Rio de Janeiro Zé Bigode Orquestra publishes its second album Smoke Club, which differs from the first, flux (2017), essentially instrumental, by account with eight of 10 songs with lyrics and voice. Among the guests that grease the delicious mix of reggae, afrobeat, jazz, R&B and Brazilian music are B. Negão, Curumin, Luciane Dom, Pedro Guinu and Thiago França. 

Régis Martins & Cia Fantasma is a side project created in 2013 by the guitarist of the 90s São Paulo indie band Motormama. Now it finally comes to the first full album, Modulated Frequency (2022) –previously, the trio had released the EPs short waves (2015) and Atlantic Blues (2019), always in collaboration with the Midsummer Madness label–, which unites the group's traditional folk atmosphere with electronic drums and synthesizers in a kind of highly recommended technofolk / synthfolk.  

Result of the meeting between the musicians Dora Morelenbaum, Julia Mestre, Lucas Nunes and Zé Ibarra, all from Rio de Janeiro, the Bala Desejo band project is one of the Brazilian musical bets for 2022. In February they published yesSimSim, released by the Coala Records label in two EPs, an offshoot of the excellent Coala Festival (whoever wants to come to Brazil to see a music festival in 2022 should have Coala in their sights: the poster is amazing). Sound mixes tropicalism, Latin and carnival themes from a young band that deserves your attention. 

Increasingly farther from the moorings of emocore, a musical genre that he helped to popularize in Brazil in the early 2000s, Fresno has made his music an instrument to explore the most diverse sounds that can range from samba to electronic music. In 2021 he published Vou Ter Que Me Virar (2021), present in several lists of the best of the year, among them heAPCA's 50 Records of 2021 and the list Scream & Yell Top 25. In February they launched two remixes for themes Já Faz Tanto Tempo and Vou Ter Que Me Virar (listen here): «We have been working with remixes of our songs since before it was normal in bands of our style», vocalist and guitarist Lucas Silveira told Scream & Yell. 

In February, Scream & Yell published the best of the year, their annual special. With a list of 128 guests (including journalists, online media editors, musicians, radio hosts, etc...), the special lists best of 2021 in the categories Record of the Year, Music (Brazilian and foreign), Movie, Podcast, Book and TV Show, among others. It is practically a summary of the best of Brazilian music in 2021 (with a playlist and lists of the 50 most voted albums). A special edition for lovers of pop culture, like us.  

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