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

March in Brazil seems to have lasted three months. With pandemic numbers declining, the number of those vaccinated increasing and the mandatory use of masks ended, many events welcomed the public as if we were living in 2019, among them Lollapalooza Brazil, the first mega-festival since the virus proliferated 24 months ago. "Celebrating life in 2022 is something everyone should do at some point when they feel safe." we wrote in our coverage of the festivaland more than 300,000 people celebrated music, life and reunion at the Autódromo de Interlagos in São Paulo. Music, once again, bringing people together. And, not for nothing, we started our list of highlights with a special Faro project called... "Unite Everything!".

As Brazil was not included in the documentary Break Everythingproducer and Scream & Yell collaborator Leonardo Vinhas has planned an initiative to unite South America through music: the "¡Unan Todo!" campaign is not his or the site's first foray into this territory: in 2015 we launched We Are All Latinoswith Brazilians singing songs from neighboring countries. Then came Kaleidoscope (2015), with artists from 11 countries celebrating Os Paralamas do Sucesso, Brazil Is Also Latin (2016), with neighboring artists singing Brazilian songs, Conexão Latina (2018), We are! - Quarentena's Songs (2020), Under a Uruguayan Sky (2021) y Conexão Latina II (2021) - all with free download. Thus, the EP "Unan Todo!" (2022), our next release, is a project of the Faro Alliance, and unites Brazilians with artists from Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Mexico. The first single brings together Brazilian band The Raulis with Mexican artist Pahua, and you can listen to it below. More info on the project here. 

Band crossover of punk rock, metal and thrash, the powerful black trio Black Pantera returns screaming Fogo nos Racistas, one of the singles of their noisy and great third album, Ascenção, which came out in March with 12 activist songs that criticize the genocidal Jair Bolsonaro, structural racism and homophobia, among other issues. The cover is a photo by Victor Balde taken in November 2019 showing Ana Francisco and Carolina Antônio, two women from La Meconta (Mozambique), holding machetes and protecting a child. The image was part of the collection She fights like a Mozambican woman. 

In 2011, Luiza Brina released her first solo album, A Toada Vem é Pelo Vento (Everything Comes in the Wind), producing more than 1,500 home copies of the album, a copy, today, costs more than $1,000 on Discogs. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the album, the label dobra discos has released a deluxe digital version of the album, with the eight original tracks plus 11 special tracks for the reissue, with appearances by Zé Manoel e o Boi de Maracanã, Ana Frango Elétrico and Castello Branco. A beautiful album that only got better with time. 

Chilean artist living in Belo Horizonte and increasingly closer to Brazilian musicians, Claudia Manzo launched Re-Turn, his second solo album, an album that shows new influences through the use of electronic bases, but that dialogues in full harmony with his peculiar organic and Latin sound. It features collaborations with Luiza Brina (on Pequenos Homens) and the duo Russo Passapusso and Beto Barreto (from BaianaSystem), which contribute to the single Água BentaTo listen and to want to put it all together more and more!

Dulce Quental is an artist who became known in the Brazilian rock explosion of the 80's and, between comings and goings, moved away from the market. Now, with Under the Sign of Lovehis sixth solo album, and one of the best of his career, wants to reconnect with a new audience. The album, produced by brothers Jonas Sá and Pedro Sá (the latter, a collaborator of Caetano Veloso), is an album of infatuation and resistance, "a conversation in the ear, whispered, you know", comment hereThe album is an album of guitar and vocals in the front, with a tiny drum kit and the little MPC noises in the back. Highly recommended.

Thirteen years after their danceable and beautiful second album, A Vontade Superstar (2009), Bruno Morais returns with Supreme PowerBruno continues to combine love and dance with a unique "brasilidade" and a very special group of collaborators (Bixiga 70, Juçara Marçal and Thiago França of Metá Metá, Aníbal de Metá, Aníbal de Metá). Bruno continues to combine love and dance with a unique "brasilidade" and a very special group of collaborators (Bixiga 70, Juçara Marçal and Thiago França of Metá Metá, Anelis Assumpção, Roberto Barreto, guitarist and one of the brains behind BaianaSystem, among others) in a result that will make you move your whole body. 

Andrea Agda and Daniel Arruda formed Banana Scrait in Fortaleza in the first half of the 1990s, faithful to the indie rock guitar style of the time. In 2015, however, the duo surprised with two beautiful releases, one of them, the brilliant EP Giostrain homage to the master Alberto Nepomuceno (1864/1920). Now they return with Eletro Bossa Novareimagining classics of Brazilian music (Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes, Baden Powell) with a modern slant, achieving a dazzling result. 

Published in 2019, Violet, Terno Rei's third album, expanded the band's reach and gained a new wave of fans, which made expectations and anxiety around the new album inevitable. The newly released Gêmeos shows that the band has not shied away from responsibility by adding new layers to their sound and showing a renewed breath by combining the quartet's classic seasoning - melancholic, almost languid guitars and a conciseness in the songs - with a more pop touch. Let's talk to them!

Protagonist of the Amazon music scene, the experimental alternative band Luneta Mágica was inspired by one of the first documentaries about the Amazon, No Paiz das Amazonasdirected by Silvino Santos and Agesilau Araújo in 1922, to establish an interesting connection between psychedelic rock, indie rock and Brazilian rhythms. Released in March, the album No Paiz das Amazonashas already earned the quintet several accolades and a live session, which you can watch below.

One of the little-heard treasures of the current Brazilian music scene (despite opening one of the stages of Lollapalooza Brazil 2022), is the music of São Paulo rapper Edgar, what continues to generate pearls such as Bible, Boi and BalaThe song is a powerful song that summarizes a group of bad politicians in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. The single is part of the EP Ultravioletfrom which we also recommend the track Fake NewsEdgar summarizes: "In this song I say that the corrupt politician's head should be torn off and put in a pulpit". A sharp lyricist, Edgar is one of the best chroniclers of Brazilian music today.

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