A documentary on the still pretty much obscure history of Miami Bass is about to be released, apparently it includes also a chapter about the Brasilian legacy of Miami Bass. Sorry, I couldn´t find any more detailed infos on this documentary.
The Upsetter tells the fascinating story of Lee “Scratch” Perry, a visionary musician and artist from poor rural Jamaica who journeyed to the big city in the late 1950s with dreams of making it in the burgeoning record industry. Lee Perry burst on the scene with a brand new sound, inventing a genre of music that would come to be called reggae, while mentoring a young Bob Marley and gaining international recognition as a record producer and solo artist. The Upsetter charts 70 years in the life of Lee “Scratch” Perry in his own words through an exclusive interview given to American filmmakers Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough in Switzerland in 2006. It is also a documentation of 30 years of Jamaican music and culture . The film is narrated by Academy Award winner Benico Del Toro. Essential viewing!
Btw, does anyone know where to find that version of “Chase The Devil” played in the trailer?
Piranha – O Carimbó no Ceará is another film documenting an amazonian micro-genre. This one is about Carimbó, based in Ceará and in the the state of Pará, the very same state where you can find tecnobrega. Inspired by The Buena Vista Social club, in the style of a road-movie it looks to reunite the great masters of this style and show them once again to the general public.
Carimbó is particularly interesting as it is a mixture of Amazonian rhythms and styles, created by the Tupinambás indians, it mixes indigenious black and Portuguese culture as well as being influenced by Merengue and Cúmbia. Carimbó was most popular during the 70s and 80s, when artists such as Pinduca introduced bass, guitar, and drums and created carimbó pop.
It reached its peak in the 80s in the state of Ceará and is a fine example of a pop music that is intrinsically Amazonian, as it relates its indigenious past and the culture of the Amazon, praising the beaches, places and of course women.
It was directed by Tibico Brasil, and the trailer above unfortunately doesn’t have subtitles, but you can get a great idea of the music and characters involved.
This documentary about legendary MC Mr Catra is apparently a pilot for a TV series, but still has no channel or distribution and it’s without final artwork, audio and colouring – and unfortunately no subtitles. Still looks damn fine though!
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
