Another free album download to add to your collection. This one is from Gui Amabis, a producer and husband of singer Céu, who he has previously produced. Céu contributes to this album as does Tulipa who does her usual twee thing, which many people seem to enjoy, but gets on my nerves at times. Criolo sings on a couple of great tracks, including “Orquídea Ruida” which is nicely atmospheric and almost Trópicalia-like. It’s a mixed bag, and certainly is full of major players – Curumin, Dengue, Pupillo and Lucas Santtana.

It makes me wonder who is paying for all these recent free releases. I imagine many of them are based round studios, where the studio players are all contributing for next to nothing on each others releases. The quality is certainly high enough, and I refer to the recording as well the playing. Almost every release that has been worth listening to this year from Brazil has had Curumin playing on it! He certainly gets around and is versatile enough. it would be interesting to know if he makes a good living from this.

Download Memórias Luso/Africanas here or go to the site.

Home to major pop culture aggregating blogs Trabalho Sujo and Urbe amongst others, O Esquema.com.br  is releasing the free download of the compilation O Violão. Previous releases by O esquema include João Brasil’s big forbidden dance, so I think it’s worth your clicks.

The compilation started out as a summer DJ remix compilation but then summer came and went and the idea of Dj mixes didn’t really gel, so what they did instead was to ask artist friends and comrades to supply acoustic versions of their own tracks and thus create a more cohesive collection with an autumnal feel.

Thus what we have here is a fine collection of names from the current Brazilian indie-mpb sei la que scene; friend of Man Recs, João Brasil, Céu, Kassin (from Moreno+2), Wado, Lucas Santtana, Curumin and so on. As I said before well worth your time.

Download O Violão (ZIP)