All Categories — All Formats  

Brazilian vocals, with plenty of jazz – a smoker of a set from singer Clarice Assad – with a feel that takes us back to rare indie albums of the 70s and 80s! The instrumentation is great – lots of hard-grooving piano from Clarice, played in these inventive ways that often infuse odd melodic touches with a key sense of rhythm – one that's augmented by lots of additional percussion, including djembe, pandeiro, tamborim, ocean drum, and more – used sparely, but with great effect to drive along the piano and vocals! And Assad has his great way of singing and scatting too – a style that's rooted a bit in 70s modes from Tania Maria or Flora Purim – but which takes off with its own sort of earthy experimentalism as well. Titles include "20 Anos Blues"," Dora", "The Last Song", "Cajuina", "Ad Lib", and "For Elis" – a great medley that's a tribute to Elis Regina!

A loving look at the Adventure Music label – served up in a 3CD set that offers a heck of a lot of great music for a very low price, all hand-picked by the lovely Monday Michiru! Adventure's been one of the best sources for Brazilian music and acoustic sounds for the past decade – a label with a really strong dedication to a few sorts of styles – like some of the best mixes of jazz, bossa, and choro modes recorded in Brazil – or the wonderful post-folk acoustic underground that's risen up in the US. The package really spans the full scope of the label's music – and offers up a whopping 44 tracks in all – all to introduce you to their efforts. Our hat's off to Monday for the track selection – and the package features work by Hamilton De Holanda, Ricardo Silveira, Daniel Santiago, Muiza Adnet, Mike Marshall, Jovino Santos Neto, Moacir Santos, Antonio Arnedo, Maria Marquez, Clarice Assad, Tom Lellis, Eva Scow, Gui Mallon, Toninho Horta, Florencia Ruiz, Alex Hargreaves, Philippe Baden Powell, and others!