Search "twit+one" 487 Items

Because it's the passion for music that drives the person behind the decks, a dj's debut is bound to exude authenticity. It's often themselves they're recounting in music, posing on the slip mats their DNA and what makes them who they are.
When you're just starting out, you're faced with a multitude of routes to take and styles to play. When you know just how devastating it can be to step out of line and empty the dance floor even faster than it filled up, it often takes a lot of audacity to break the unity of a funk evening with a punk track.
Over time, to evolve is to find oneself facing only two roads.
On the first one, to satisfy the greatest number of people and not lose the credit for his fees, the dj adapts to the trend. Whether he likes what he's playing or not, the road has become a freeway and, indeed, a very comfortable one. The audience already knows everything there is to hear and doesn't come to hear anything else. Thirty seconds, or even a minute of each track, is more than enough. Everything has to flow quickly. Everything is marked out and secured. Those who respect the regulations will (normally) make the journey without accident. Several times a week, several times a month, several times a year. Curiosity disappears altogether.
And then there's the other road. Where nothing is expected nor sometimes even ever heard. The road of an unquenchable passion for diggin' and the desire to always know more and more. A passion billed at the price of hours of research-finding spent in the discomfort and possible disappointment of never coming across anything exciting, as well as nights exploring platforms and multiplying clicks resulting in a good old headache. Until that moment of grace happens when, after thousands of fruitless shakes, the nugget stands alone in the sieve, without the slightest doubt as to its quality.
Coming from places never mentioned for their music, sometimes classics of their genre, they are also rarities miraculously saved from total disappearance, as much as current marvels, but threatened to never leave the immensity of the web. Even if the possibility of a text with substance is never excluded, they can tell long stories or be destined solely to make you dance till you're dehydrated. Scintillating with spirituality, some can also vaporize energy and replace it with a pure emotion capable of touching hearts in the bareness of simple percussions.
This road is marked by sincerity, singularity and surprises, but always in a communion between the dj and the audience, who embark on it together, with mutual confidence in the promise of hours of sharing and discovering.

For number 93 in the Brazil45 series, we presented two favourites from the Harmony Cats. A female vocal quintet (who later became a trio) from São Paulo. They formed in 1976 and were most prolific in the disco period.

'Harmony Cats' Theme' from 1976 is probably the group’s best-known track outside of Brazil. Owing a lot to Rhythm Heritage's version of 'Barretta's Theme (Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow)’ its wonderfully spacey breakbeat and percussive production with lush, floaty vocals makes it a real crossover classic record.

'Seja Como Nos (De Pe No Chao)' is instantly recognisable. Tucked away on the B-side of their 1979 single 'Tem Dinheiro Nisso' on Young Records, it is a beast of a cover version of The Jacksons' classic ' Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)'. Nothing subtle or sophisticated here. Just a song of pure disco joy, enhanced with awesome Brazilian production and the Cats' trademark vocal arrangements. A get-of-jail-free card for any DJ that finds themselves stuck with an empty dancefloor, but also one that will put smiles on the faces of the more discerning leftfield club crowds.

For number 83 in the Brazil 45 series, we pulled out a real treat. It features two tracks from Roberto De Melo Santos. Born in 1949 in Recife (Brazil), and despite a small discography, he is considered among the true icons of Brazilian soul music under his artist alias, Di Melo.

His self-titled debut album from 1975 has long been collectible for its irresistible Brazilian-funk sound, pleasing the Brazilian, B-Boy breaks, funk collectors, and sample hunters alike. With original copies for the album now fetching crazy sums, we felt these tracks needed another moment in the sun for all to enjoy.

For this release we selected two of our favourite cuts from this cult album, ‘Kilariô' and ‘Pernalonga'. Coincidentally these two gems were released on Odeon Records in 1975 as a rare promo campacto (a Brazilian 7", which plays at 33rpm). 'Kilariô' is a pure Brazilian-soul classic. All the right elements gel together, whilst Di Melo works his relaxed vocal magic over the top. ‘Pernalonga', with its catchy guitar and horns intro, loose break-beat drum, has the feel-good factor which some may recognize as one of the samples behind N.A.S.A featuring David Byrne, & Chali 2na's 'The People Tree' from 2009.

Di Melo is still recording to this day, releasing an album with Cotonete on Favorite Recordings in 2019 - a true don.

You know it's going to be a heavy record when DJ / collector Mr Thing asks you to keep a look out for a copy on your next digging trip to Brazil. Add on top of that, being sampled by Madlib on the track 'Curls’ on his Madvillain album!

Taken from Waldir Calmon's 'Waldir Calmon E Seus Multisons' album on Copacabana (1970), from looking at this unassuming record cover featuring a middle-aged man sporting an impressive pair of glasses you wouldn't expect it to become the fabric to one of the songs from the iconic 'Madvillain’ album. But… like many things in life, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. 'Airport Love Theme’, like its name suggests, falls into full-on lounge territory. It is feel-good music made to be the soundtrack for a utopian world that never really was. Yet behind the silky-smooth groove is an addictive earworm waiting to be heard.

'Afro Som' taken from the same album, pushes things in a different direction towards a sound that is more firmly rooted in the Brazilian tradition. This quirky 60's-breakbeat-funk groove is reminiscent of French artist Jean Jacques Perrey's 'E.V.A.', also from 1970, in its melody and backbeat, where the Moog synthesizer of Perrey is replaced with a more orchestrated sound by Calmon. This track is magical, cinematic and breakbeat-laden with a hidden unknown exoticism.

Waldir Calmon had an active career in music working from the '50s right up until his passing in 1982. His career started early, forming his first ensemble at the age of fourteen, originally working in bands in nightclubs and writing jingles. He progressed in the early '50s to a long-running career working in television. In addition to his television work, he had success with his recording vocation, mixing in the same musical circles as greats such as Tom Jobi, João Gilberto and Doris Monteiro.