Words by Justin Turford
The music of Brazil to me has always been somewhere between the strange and the sublime and is as it should be. The achingly large scale of the country and its endlessly rich myriad of cultures all surviving and thriving through political and social upheavals perhaps demand it. A country that dances. drums and sings in the hot streets and regards poetry as a national pastime deserves nothing more than the artform to be stretched and tampered with, and Brazil is the country in the world that consumes more of its own music and musicians than any other (apart from their northern neighbour, the USA). Brazil is music and vice versa.
Our friend and editor-at-large for the excellent Latin music and culture magazine, Sounds and Colours, Russ Slater has pulled together with Joe Osborne a brilliant 23-track beast of a compilation that spans Rio de Janeiro’s incredibly vibrant musical environment. All compiled from the last decade, there are the well known scenesters like Kassin, Negro Leo and Ava Rocha, who have all released great records in recent years but there are also unreleased nuggets from little known artists and sounds that cover everything we expect from Brazil - bossa, samba, rock, weirdo synth-boogie, funk, edgy avant-pop and of course the ongoing inspirational themes that the 60s and 70s Tropicália generation birthed.
We asked co-curator Joe Osborne to give us a little insight into the process of the record and he responded at the kind of speed you’d expect from someone coming to the showbiz moment of a long project. Ready and primed for launch, here are his thoughts…
“The existence of Hidden Waters: Strange & Sublime Sound of Rio de Janeiro feels imperative. The last decade has seen a vanguard of creativity and camaraderie seep beyond the walls of Rio's studios and record stores, and begin streaming into the city’s collective conscience. Centred around a pool of artists who flow between collaborative and individual projects, their collective power has prompted a sea-change within carioca counterculture. Reclaiming derelict spaces and dissident sounds, these musicians are now making ripples tantamount to musical revolution, and gathering momentum overseas.
The musicians on Hidden Waters already sound classic, canonical – they demand serious attention. And, so, when Russ and I began putting together this compilation last year, we concluded that a single disc wouldn’t do. Tracks by 23 artists appear on this compilation and many more integral Rio musicians feature.
We gathered material from seminal scene mainstays (Negro Leo, Ava Rocha, Kassin), revelatory newer voices (ROSABEGE, Raquel Dimantas, Ovo Ou Bicho) and breakthrough artists (Ana Frango Elétrico, Letrux, Thiago Nassif), plus an exclusive single by jazz upstart Antônio Neves and Thiaguinho. And then, we asked all participating to write about each other’s music, and compiled extensive liner notes. The liner notes are accompanied by two essays, written by Rio’s foremost music critics and cultural historians Bernardo Oliveira and Leonardo Lichote, charting the rise of this scene.
And, keeping it in the family, we approached Ovo ou Bicho frontman and graphic designer Caio Paiva to design the artwork alongside Karina Yamane. Together, they’ve created some of the scene’s most stunning album covers, and so it was no surprise that ours turned out beautifully. Shot by Bruna Sussekind at the same location as the iconic artwork for Dorival Caymmi and Ary Barroso’s Um Interpreta O Outro, and inspired by the seminal tropicália compilation Panis Et Circenses (see the framed portraits), the Hidden Waters artwork does exactly what the compilation does: bring together a family of musicians that represents contemporary Rio while dialoguing with – and subverting – its musical past.
Indeed, the compilation’s sound is unequivocally carioca. The music swells with bossa nova, jazz and funk. Fans of Brazil’s fertile sixties will spot antecedents in Tropicália. Not only in this group’s collaborative spirit and experimentation but also through the music’s similar political context – back then: Brazil’s military dictatorship, now: Bolsonaro’s censorious premiership. But it’s the music’s re-imagining of classic sounds that distinguishes this as the sound of contemporary Rio.”
Support the Hidden Waters: Strange & Sublime Sounds of Rio de Janeiro Bandcamp campaign by pre-ordering the album.