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CD REVIEWS
Cabruera
Proibido Cochilar Sambas for Sleepless Nights
Piranha
Frank London's Klezmer Brass Altstars
Carnival Conspiracy: In the Marketplace All Is Subterfuge
Piranha
During the late '60s tropicalia movement, artists like Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil revolutionized Brazilian music by fusing multiple rhythmic roots sounds from their native Bahia with the prevaing global obsessions with psychedelic rock, R&B, and modal jazz. In the 1990s, a little farther up the northeastern coast in Recife, Chico Science used similar principles to create his brash mangue beat, an audacious mix of regional styles like forro and maracatu with funk, metal, hip hop, techno, and rock.
Now Cabru ra [literally a group of goats, but implying the common folk], a band from the state of Paraiba, build on the late Science's legacy with their own mashing of styles. Proibido Cochilar[Sleeping Prohibited] is an urgent, raucous clash of subtly complex roots indigenous to northeastern Brazil- coco, maculele, galope -hot/wired, funked up, and laced with slivers of electronica, rock, jazz, and a dozen other things too incestuously interwoven to sort. The entire concoction pulsates with the sensuous spirit that fuels Carnival. It's at its earthiest on the sole genuine samba, "Eu Sambo." The accordion- spiced "Xingatorio," the CD's purest forro [which bears an uncanny resemblance to zy-deco} is still riddled with funk and twitching with rapid-fire vocals. Elsewhere, jungle, drum 'n' bass, and rock shoot through raw mixes dense with charging polyrhythms, while Arthur Pessoas gruff, keening vocals prompt call-and-response sniping.
Trumpeter Frank London and his Klezmer Brass Allstars make an unlikely connection to northeastern Brazil by sharing tropicalias mix-and-match intrigue and diving into such rhythms as maracatu. With the Klezmatics and dozens of side projects, London has spiked Jewish old-world music with everything from Led Zeppelin to avant-garde jazz. This time he draws inspiration from the inherently subversive spirit of Carnival, cobbling together the street sounds of shtetls, Pernambuco, the French Quarter, and the Lower East Side. On Carnival Conspiracy, a clarinet chortling mi nor-key klezmer melodies soars over soul-rumbling samba bests, while horns interject thunderheads of dirty blues riffs. Or a hora becomes a slam dance to the riffs of Mexican banda.
In both cases this is provocative, even fierce, cross-cultural pollination that con nects at visceral and intellectual levels. Itfe the very stuff of Carnival, where the boldest con cepts of common humanity fuel the party
-Rick Mason 03/22/06
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