Ryan Power :: World of Wonder

Four years after the brilliant Mind the Neighbors and seven after the highly-praised They Sell Doomsday, World of Wonder brings back Ryan Power’s multi-genre kaleidoscope of kosmische sensibility, toy aesthetics, and chamber pop sublime. It closely follows Fievel is Glauque’s now-famed brand of indie jazz psychedelia, with broken and demented (and yet perfectly refined) melodies going through unexpected harmonic progressions, modulating right before the phrases can find a conclusive stage.

Astrid Sonne :: Great Doubt

Great Doubt, the new record by Danish experimental composer Astrid Sonne, carefully applies extended techniques for viola and detuned pianos upon hard, synthesized beats and brass sections, which are then warped into a surreal, narcotic kind of R&B. Her flat and clear-cut vocal delivery highlights the tension building within and behind it, among a digital flora of post-rock orchestration.

Grimório de Abril :: Castelo D’Água

A new release, Castelo D’Água, comes out now via the incredibly consistent Brazilian micro-label Municipal K7. It maintains the characteristic amplitude of Sanchez’ landscapes while attaining more closely to the wetness indexed in reverb. The tracks follow what Bachelard would call the homology between water and dreams: the oneiric as a fluid substance, a liquid flow, or rather a submersion into pre-formal matter.

Jarbas Mariz :: Transas Do Futuro

Jarbas Mariz was underground even in his ‘rediscovery’ as a Brazilian gem: when a first reissue of the 1977 7″ Transas do Futuro came out in 2012, it was in a limited edition of numbered copies. Now, Mr. Bongo shines a belated light on Mariz’s solo debut, a delight of lo-fi psych folk, mystic poetry, and free experiments with the musical traditions of Brazil’s Northeast.

Fabiano Do Nascimento :: Mundo Solo

Fabiano do Nascimento seems weary of the “Brazilian music” label, at least when it ties him to particular artistic expectations. He prefers to aim for an impossible universality than to ever be pigeonholed to an ideal of national sound. His new solo material, out via Brazilian music aficionados Far Out, complicates this ambivalence.

Blake Mills :: There Is No Now

Produced and co-composed with experimental-indie-jazz legend Chris Weisman, Blake Mills’ new record feels like a slow-moving explosion — a heated fog. Mills, who by now has already won a Grammy and played with Joni Mitchell for a while, inverts the very folk he aims for here, unwinding and disintegrating it into lush, counterintuitive arrangements.

Ente :: Eternamente Sua

Ente is the main project of Arthur Bittencourt, one of the most promising names of contemporary Brazilian music. “eternamente sua”, the band’s second ever single (and the first from a debut record scheduled for this year), sounds like Clube da Esquina if they had been heavily into shoegaze. Bittencourt says he was influenced by Popol Vuh and Shostakovich as well as by the landscapes of Minas Gerais.

The Lagniappe Sessions :: Gabriel da Rosa

Shaping up to be one of our most played albums this spring, Gabriel da Rosa made his full-length debut in February with É O Que A Casa Oferece, courtesy of Stones Throw Records. Sounding like a lost seventies samba album, from the likes of Paulinho da Viola or Martinho da Vila, da Rosa makes his Lagniappe debut via a pair of Brazilian staples: Geraldo Pereira and Tom Jobim with Vinícius de Moraes.

Os Tincoãs :: Canto Coral Afrobrasileiro

In the 1970s, Os Tincoãs released three of the most revered and unique records of Brazilian music, which crystallized translucid vocal melodies on top of the polyrhythmic percussion patterns of Afro-Brazilian ritualistic music. Now, more than forty years after their last album, Sanzala Cultural has just released Canto Coral Afrobrasileiro, a collection of the trio’s recordings from 1982/83.

Rubinho E Mauro Assumpção :: Perfeitamente, Justamente Quando Cheguei

In line with the late records of Jovem Guarda, such as Erasmo Carlos’ 1970-1972 trilogy of later-revered proto-indie, as well as with Os Mutantes’ flavorful Brazilian psychedelia, Rubinho & Mauro Assumpção’s only ever release wanders through daring and often humorous experimentations. With bare instrumentation and lo-fi timbres blowing against the grain of the recording, it soon came to be a coveted rarity among collectors. Mr. Bongo’s recent reissue offers a great chance to reexamine this piece of soft-noise MPB.

Chico Lessa :: S/T

Chico Lessa’s debut record, a post-Tropicalia jazz-funk private press release from 1982, has just been reissued by the Madrid-based label Vampisoul. It retains influences from the popular Brazilian funk of the early 1980s, from the then-somewhat-defunct Clube da Esquina scene (whose conductor Wagner Tiso is a center feature of the record), as well as from the exploratory and dissonant MPB of Boca Livre (whose mastermind Maurício Maestro signs the arrangements here). A bright little gem in an otherwise uneventful career that, much like the recent rediscoveries of José Mauro or Hareton Salvanini, makes us wonder what Brazilian music could have been — or what we are still to find out it was.

Dezo Ursiny :: Modry Vrch (1981)

Slovak prog legend Dezo Ursiny is still to find the recognition he deserves outside of his homeland. A successful composer of documentary soundtracks in the socialist 1970s, and later a filmmaker in his own right, Ursiny passed away prematurely but left a significant oeuvre.

It’s the music you’d hear in a dream where you’re coming back from a party in a late night cab and the streets are empty and the sky is gleaming and the world is ending.

Erasmo Carlos :: 1941-2022

Yesterday, legendary Brazilian musician Erasmo Carlos passed away at 81. Simultaneously proto-Tropicalia and post-Tropicalia, his trilogy of releases from 1970 to 1972 embody an indie aesthetic of twangling guitars and cosmic laid-backness that, rather than merely mimicking (and being subsumed by) American trends, may fit completely in an admirable tradition of obscure para-country balladeers, with Robert Lester Folsom, F.J. McMahon, and others.

Ferkat Al Ard :: Oghneya

Oghneya is one of the most interesting recent additions to the impressive catalog of Habibi Funk, a label that aims to circulate Arab funk and soul records from the 1960-80s to a global audience. Originally released in 1978 by the Issam Hajali-lead Lebanese trio Ferkat Al Ard, the record maintains the modes and melismas so associated with Arabic music while entertaining cinematic orchestral arrangements within a pop psych-folk compositional framework.