MP3 of the Week - Olivia Byington: "Lobo do Mar"

It's back! BACK!! BAAA*sniiiiiippp*

Despite my good intentions, this has turned out to be as regular a feature as a Jamie Carragher hat-trick, but I intend to rectify this over the next few weeks. So let's bring it back with something which is both absurdly obscure and a bit of a cracker, eh?

I've written about Brazilian music and (relatively speaking) my recently-developed enthusiasm for it on here before. Incidentally, I checked my Divshare account the other day, and discovered that those DJ Nuts links have had tons of downloads, so either someone's sharing them elsewhere (without even the courtesy of a comment, I might add), or this blog gets more traffic than I thought. Anyway, I digress. When you're as long in the tooth as I am, it's easy to get a bit jaded and start thinking you've heard all the good swag you're ever going to hear. Not true. I found this tune on the excellent Donna Slut mp3 blog, and found the album it's from on Loronix (check the blogroll). It features a lot of the things I like about Brazilian music - slightly melancholy, hippyish vibe, lots of interesting musical flourishes, and in the case of this tune, an overall feel not far removed from that of some lost prog-rock gem from somewhere in Northern Europe. The flute's very Tull, and it reminds me a little bit of female-fronted prog outfits like Earth and Fire or Atlantis. I know not much more than the sum total of fuck-all about Olivia Byington, other than that she used to sing with Brazilian proggers A Barca do Sol, and went on to have a long and distinguished solo career in her home country, where she still performs today. I wouldn't expect anyone to take much interest in the joy I find in discovering music that was being made half a world away, back when I thought Generation X were a big deal, but I can assure you that joy is substantial. Furthermore, I can offer no great insight into the cultural context of this song, and of course I don't understand a bloody word she's singing, but it sounds great on a day like today, when the sun's high in the sky and things (or some of them) seem exactly the way they ought to be. Enjoy.

Olivia Byington: Lobo do Mar ('Corra o Risco', 1978)

Brazil, Nuts.

It used to be that, as far as Brazilian music was concerned, my familiarity didn't extend a great deal further than Sergio Mendes, "The Girl From Ipanema", the handful of Jobim tunes everybody knows, the correct pronunciation of "batucada" and who Bebel Gilberto's dad was. Thanks mainly to guidance and suggestions from numerous friends, or DJs like Gilles Peterson, Patrick Forge and Jez Nelson, and Soul Jazz's superb "Tropicalia" compilations, but particularly to the sterling work of the good people who maintain blogs and websites such as Loronix, Um Que Tenha, Brazilian Nuggets and Sabadabada, this is no longer the case. I now know a bit more about the differences between MPB, Tropicalismo and Jovem Guarda (or even that there is a difference), or that the Roberto Carlos who played full-back for Real Madrid isn't the only famous Roberto Carlos to have come out of Brazil in my lifetime. I can even tell you which track from the first O Terco album was sampled in Madvillain's "Untitled". Oh, well done, I hear you say. Bully for you. We're supposed to be impressed by this why, exactly? Well, you're not, not really. But you might be impressed by DJ Nuts. Nuts is a native of Sao Paulo, has been a key player on the city's hip-hop scene since the early 1990s, and is considered to be the leading turntablist in the country. In short, this fella is pretty much the Brazilian equivalent of someone like J-Rocc or Babu, with skills to match. Except that he also has an ace or two up his sleeve, the nature of which may become apparent from this clip.



Now, while I was busy acting all pleased with myself a paragraph ago, I neglected to mention that I hadn't even heard of DJ Nuts until a few months ago, much less heard any of his astonishing mix CDs. Then I discovered that Nuts can haz blog, whereupon he'd posted half a dozen of the bleeders. However, he'd chosen to host them on Zshare, which used to be a reliable enough host, but has become increasingly shonky in recent months, so unfortunately you can't download them from there until Nuts fixes the links. However, thanks to the efforts of another Sao Paulisto who posts on the Soul Strut messageboard under the handle MoogMan, I can now share a few of them with you, and trust me, you've never heard Brazilian music played like this. Being that Nuts is essentially a hip-hop DJ, he plays the music of his home country just as you'd expect a hip-hop DJ to play it - Disco e Cultura Vol. 2, for example, features sixty-three tracks - and the breaks-heavy, ADD, quick-mixing style he often utilises, particularly on 2004's face-melting Cultura Copia, may not be for everyone. Similarly, if you download any of them in the expectation of an hours-worth of variations on "Mas Que Nada", you might be disappointed. But if you can set those considerations to one side, then not only are these mixes great fun, but they also feature plenty of fabulous and often quite beautiful music.

Cultura Copia comes partially tagged, with a full tracklisting in the zip file, but Disco e Cultura Vols 1 & 2 (both 2005) are untagged, and 2006's Disco e Cultura Vol. 3 (which is chocka with classic Brazilian dancefloor jazz) is just one big file, so please be aware of this when opening them in iTunes or wherever. All come with gorgeous artwork, should you want to burn them to CD. If I happen upon full tracklistings for any or all of the Disco e Cultura volumes, I'll post an update as soon as. In the meantime, get stuck in.

DJ Nuts: Cultura Copia (2004) - 105mb

DJ Nuts: Disco e Cultura Vol. 1 (2005) - 142mb

DJ Nuts: Disco e Cultura Vol. 2 (2005) - 142mb

DJ Nuts: Disco e Cultura Vol. 3 (2006) - 171mb