Brazil
Sócrates review - pain and grief on the Brazilian coastWednesday, 09 September 2020![]() In the course of this short (65 minute) film, 15-year-old Sócrates wanders around Santos, in the state of Brazil’s São Paolo, and the nearby coast after the death of his mother, rejected at one point or another by everyone with whom he comes in... Read more... |
Album: Bebel Gilberto - AgoraThursday, 20 August 2020![]() The title, translated from the Portuguese, is “now” – an immediacy that, on first listen, seems apt for Bebel Gilberto’s lush and loose Agora. Originally scheduled for a May release, the Brazilian singer’s first album in six years sings with a... Read more... |
Good Manners review - compellingly eerieSaturday, 18 July 2020![]() Stylish, eerie and unexpectedly moving by the time of its apocalyptic finish, the strangely titled Good Manners makes for a genuine celluloid surprise. Written and directed by Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, this genre-defying Brazilian... Read more... |
The Dead and the Others review – dreamlike journey set in indigenous Brazilian communityFriday, 26 June 2020![]() The Dead and the Others won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes in 2018, perhaps due to the supreme devotion to subject and place that this macabre work exhibits. It is a film of startling visual power and mood, with a drifting storyline that... Read more... |
theartsdesk Radio Show 27 - direct from Sāo Paulo with guest stars including Chico CésarTuesday, 17 March 2020![]() The latest edition of Peter Culshaw’s global music radio update was recorded on the road in São Paulo, Brazil, featuring some of the most interesting local musicians a couple of weeks ago – before the virus tsunami hit (Brazil was behind the curve,... Read more... |
Album: Sergio Mendes - In the Key of JoyWednesday, 26 February 2020![]() Released to coincide with a new documentary on his life by filmmaker John Scheinfeld, In the Key of Joy celebrates the multifaceted genius of Brazilian producer, composer, keyboardist and vocalist, Sergio Mendes.Recorded between Brazil and... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Fernando Falcão - Memória das ÁguasSunday, 04 August 2019![]() Memória das Águas hasn’t figured in lists of great Brazilian albums. Its creator Fernando Falcão isn’t as celebrated as fellow countryman and musical maverick Tom Zé. The reissue of this arresting yet previously obscure album should help change... Read more... |
Boogarins, Jazz Cafe review - psychedelic hues and Brazilian groovesWednesday, 17 July 2019![]() I never quite know where I stand with with jazz. The endless, drifting circular loops of sound, subversive grooves and syncopated rhythms are like having the same conversation over and over, with slightly different turns of phrase and emphasis on... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Jambú e os Míticos Sons da AmazôniaSunday, 30 June 2019![]() Belém’s population is one-and-a-half million. Located 100km south of Brazil’s north coast on the east bank of the Amazon feeder river Pará, it’s the capital of the state sharing its name with the waterway. The city is only 160km south of the equator... Read more... |
Milton Nascimento, Barbican review – besotted audience hails frail legendWednesday, 19 June 2019![]() Milton Nascimento is 76. Physically, he is quite frail; he had to be helped carefully onto the stage and then up into a high stool for this London concert by a couple of band members. But that arrival and rather ungainly progress were, as one might... Read more... |
Sergio Mendes, RFH review - tight discipline, exceptional musicianshipTuesday, 07 May 2019![]() The last time Sergio Mendes, the Brazilian bossa nova legend, played at the Royal Festival Hall was in 1980 when he opened for Frank Sinatra. He shakes his head in wonder at the memory, though it’s not so long ago in the scheme of things – his... Read more... |
Bebel Gilberto, Union Chapel review - less effort, more transcendence, pleaseTuesday, 16 April 2019![]() How do we want our fleeting, precious, close-up glimpses of the royals to be? Do we want the mystique, the aura, glamour and transcendence? Or would we rather be reassured that they are, in their way, just like us? No performer could have given more... Read more... |
- 1 of 6
- ››
