Love the above image created by artist/designer Fabio Lopez, who created the infamous War in Rio board game (if you don’t know the board game, click on the link, it’s an amazing idea).

Tropa de Elite 2 (Elite Squad 2) is in the cinemas in Brazil at the moment and is pretty darned good, a few clumsy plot devices but hard hitting and brutal all the same, and, dare I say it, better than the first…

(via URBe (again!)

Here in Brazil the election is coming up at the weekend so this gives the politicians an excuse to have their face and election number plastered all the cities and towns nationwide. There is no word to describe how tacky this looks and how offensive the bland slogans are.  It really is visual pollution of the worst kind and basically the politicians are demonstrating their true worth by supporting this.

So I applaud this movement in Rio of defacing the campaign posters that I think most people are sick of.  I love the still from the video above with the candidate’s poster and the guy passed out underneath. The music to the video is  a version of  Rap do trabalhador by Mc Magalhães which can be found here.

(via urbe)

I blogged about this documentary before, however,  here it is in its full glory and with English subtitles and very professional looking it is too.  Here’s the blurb:

Musician Thiago Pethit, rapper Xis, producer Chernobyl, bands Holger, Firefriend and DJs Killer on the Dancefloor, Database e Pristine Blusters raise questions in this documentary about themes that relate to the current independent music industry in São Paulo and the world.

Collective creation is the center of this discussion, which highlights subjects such as remixes, samples, authorship record sales e creative process.

We.Music is an initiative of SixPix and Remix in conjunction with MIS (The Sound and Image Museum of São Paulo) and collective Galeria Experiência, as part of YouPIX, a digital culture festival which takes place every year in the museum.

This film was produced and directed by the multimedia collective Galeria Experiência. (www.galeriaexperiencia.com.br)

An unfortunately far too short portrait of Vinyl collectors and producers and aficionados. From the owner of a Charlie Parker album worth $10,000 who believes in playing it and prefers mono to stereo to the producers at Norton Records who do an admirable job of resurrecting rock n’ roll eccentrics. To that add the proprietor of Fynl Vinyl, straight out of a Nick Hornsby novel and a homemade Gramophone brought by it’s owner and maker to Washington Square Park every Sunday to play a collection of 78’s. Produced for WNET City Arts by Howard Silver.

The above is a trailer for the We.music (sorry, shit name!) documentary about independent music in São Paulo. Sorry for those non-portuguese speakers, I’ll see if I can find a subtitled version. I haven’t seen it yet, but it does look interesting and reasonably well made.

The independent scene seems to be  holding out hope for the music industry in Brasil, now that the majors have all but given up the ghost. Groups like Mombojó (see below) are self releasing their own material  through their site and seem to have struck a deal with the infernal UOL to make their new album available, though I would be interested to know how that works out financially for them.

The documentary includes friend of Man Recs, DJ Chernobyl.  At the We.music site there’s a nice track by Mr Chernobyl with excellent São Paulo Rapper Xis.
Chernobyl + Xis – Pra que tudo se nada se leva by wemusic