Latin | Brazil Vinyl 542 Items

(Classicos EM Vinyl, LP 180gr, Simple cover) Recorded live at "Maracanãzinho" (Rio de Janeiro) on the 23rd of February, 1974. Liner notes by Gerson Conrad.

Currently based in Berlin, Pedro Ricardo has been releasing music for the past eight years under different aliases via labels such as Wolf Music and his own imprint Hear, Sense and Feel. An eclectic DJ and selector, he hosts a radio show on South London’s radio Balamii, guested on Mafalda’s NTS show and can be found playing in clubs across all Europe. Stylistically, Ricardo became entranced with jazz from an early age, while also becoming enamoured with folk music – rooted in his Portugal childhood, now encompassing sounds from Cape Verde, Brazil, and Spain along the way. He intertwines these instrumental influences with field recordings, and electronics, on Soprem Bons Ventos. “The album translates to ‘Good Winds Blow’, shares Ricardo. “This idea of good winds blowing is intertwined with the feeling of missing something, and sadness. On a positive note, there is still an overarching sense that happiness also lies ahead. Soprem Bons Ventos represents an ode to the past, to those who came before me, connecting with my present and imagining the future.”

Originally released in 2012, the second album by the São Paulo-born composer Rodrigo Campos marks a turning point in both lyrical and aesthetic inspiration. “Bahia Fantástica” is the result of the absorption of a then recent influence of soul music (especially Curtis Mayfield) and is in the middle of this path marked by an unlikely geography in the lyrical part (São Mateus, Bahia, Japan) and by an expansion of sound ( from samba to the indefinable, with a passage through black American music).

The album turns ten years old in 2022 and exudes vitality. The soul reference takes on a different aroma when it passes through the filter of the composer and his band – formed by Kiko Dinucci on guitar, Marcelo Cabral on bass, Maurício Fleury on keyboards, Maurício Takara on drums and Thiago França on sax: it has Brazilian sauce, hints of afrobeat and a very particular seasoning. The lyrics bear the artist's mark: they project scenes in the listener's imagination and design the characters and environments with their own style of subjective chronicle. Bahia is both imaginary and intimate in Rodrigo Campos’s music.

Those two über-hip expatriate Colombian ‘salsapunks’ are back. Contento’s first album, Lo Bueno Está Aquí, was an artistic and critical success: chosen, for example, by the UK’s discerning national newspaper, The Guardian, as their global album of the month in November last year. Their follow-up, En Lancha Pal Futuro, builds seamlessly on its predecessor. Yet it could not have been recorded in more different, and difficult, circumstances.

The duo’s debut was laid down between 2016 and 2019, a period when the two European-based Colombians, who met at an Eddie Palmieri concert in Berlin, were able to take some serious time off from their diverse individual projects to explore a new vision for salsa. Paulo, a member of Acid Coco, Jaguar and El Dragón Criollo; and Sano, a DJ and producer known for his minimalist Latin house releases for the Cómeme label, crystallized on their debut what Paulo describes as “a new salsa sound that may also make [listeners] want to discover some of the older sounds, too.” That sound is a kind of ‘retro-smart’ combination of Nuyorican boogaloo from the ‘60s and cumbia from the golden age of Discos Fuentes. Contento’s contemporary electronic twist suggests, if you like, a kind of post-modern variation on Dave ‘Baby’ Cortez’s “Happy Hook With an Organ”.

The album that you now enjoy has been compiled by El Palmas & El Drágon Criollo an begins with the theme that every afternoon, starting at 6 O´clock, all the youth of Caracas waited anxiously: “Introduction Theme” by Los Supersónicos was the wake-up call to introduce the charge of surfing that that later it would explode in El Club Musical.

And from the same group, another of their greatest hits is included, such as “Rosas Rojas para una Dama Triste”.

The Dangers were in charge of entertaining many youth parties in Venezuelan society. Their great success was “Congratulations”, an obscure Ricky Nelson song, of which they made an excellent cover. And to demonstrate the great influence of the British group The Shadows - present in all the youth bands of the time - here they shine with their recreation of the song “González” The Blonders were by far the possessors of the purest and most crystalline sound among the surf groups in Venezuela. A bold and highly imaginative arrangement of the classic “Lamento Borincano” is enough to justify its inclusion in this compilation.

And although The Impala came to have the most aggressive and rock-and-roll sound, here they show another facet of their music with the songs “Triste” and “Desafinado”.

Jaguar mine the sounds of the Colombian Caribbean and global dance sub cultureson a debut album that veers between psychedelic salsa, taut cumbia-disco and zouk party jams.



Rave culture never hit Colombia in the 90s – an internal civil war and a music industry fixated on blandness and payola made sure of that – but if it had then Jaguar would have been one of its leading lights. On their debut album this Colombian duo excavate the sound of their country’s dance floors, uniting the classy, brassy sounds of cumbia, porro and salsa with the earthier DIY vibrations coming from Afro-Colombian street parties on the coast, melodies and guitar lines learnt from imported African vinyl filtered through drum machines and hand-painted picó sound systems with the bass so high it threatens to knock you over.

The twosome mark out their stall on album opener “Bailalo Tu También” (“You Dance It, Too”), urging all to come and dance on a tune that references champeta (the #1 sound of Afro-Colombian block parties), zouk and calypso, as well as doffing a cap to disco and Brit funk, uniting the underground dance cultures of Colombia, the Caribbean, New York and London in one fell swoop. The cumbia card comes out on “Contra La Corriente” (“Against The Tide”), which with its subtle influences of global bass and minimal post-disco gives this classic rhythm even more thrust. “Ten Presente” (“Keep In Mind”) represents another side step, a salsa orchestra stripped down to just vocals, percussion, killer horn section and raspy charango, with the groove never in doubt.

Yet, if 90s rave culture represented a response to the darkness of the 80s, then something similar is at play here, the image of the Caribbean as a warm, happy and danceable place coming in contrast with the poverty that is the reality for many living there, and this dark underbelly is not ignored by Jaguar. “Is it possible that the people united could become invincible?” they ask on “Guadalupe”, offering a message of hope that one day the inequality, poverty and neglect that is everyday life for many people in Colombia will be diminished by getting behind the same cause. Driven by an 80s-inspired zouk beat, they dream of there one day being a united people with the strength to fight back against the authorities. “¿Será posible, será posible?” they sing, “Could it be possible, could it be possible?” This dichotomy of emotions crops up again on “Siguele El Paso” (“Keep Up”), a pure Caribbean groove that is impossibly infectious with lyrics that speak of keeping those hips moving but can’t help but mention reality, the protagonist of the song dodging bullets and nefarious forces while still keeping their rhythm on the dance floor. It’s a perfect encapsulation of Jaguar’s modus operandi, this is music to make you dance, but it remains grounded, in Colombian and Caribbean musical idioms as well as the hard times that many Colombians are living through. It’s a rhythmic elixir, but with bite; rum straight from the bottle.

Jaguar are two Colombians based in Europe, Paulo and Raúl. Since the 90s their paths crossed, their names mentioned by mutual friends, but it would not be until 2017 that they finally got to know each other. Quickly they established a musical rapport, forming a band with some friends that fell apart just as quickly, but they knew that wasn’t the end, and they continued working on songs, finding their musical language; a path that led them to Madremonte and a sound that imbibes cumbia, salsa, bolero, rock, zouk and champeta, music from across Colombia, from the Caribbean, its Pacific Coast and high into the Andes, all the while transposing these sounds to the dance floor.