mpb Archives - Backseat Mafia

Album Review: Negro Leo – ‘White Elephant’: Confrontational, complex and utterly compelling retrospective from the Brazilian experimenter.

Opening windows onto the best music that you’ve never heard, the latest reveal from Hive Miind Records is another ambitious and, in some ways, risky release. Working with Rio based…

View Post

View Post

Album Review: Carol Maia & Jeremy Gustin – ‘it’s nice to see a lake in your eyes’: an mpb moment to treasure from the Rio/Brooklyn partnership.

Shaped by online exchanges between Rio and Brooklyn, ‘it’s nice to see a lake in your eyes’ by Carol Maia and Jeremy Gustin leaves no doubt about their shared sense…

View Post

View Post

Album Review: Sessa –‘Pequena Vertigem de Amor’: Uncanny magic and lush funkiness from the rising São Paulo songsmith.

Sergio Sayeg (aka Sessa) is an artist who travels through distances and circumstances with his music. Coming from São Paulo his first pull was towards the psychedelic pop-toned Tropicalia mash-up…

View Post

View Post

Track/Video : Rising São Paulo songsmith Sessa previews upcoming album with the blissed out bossa-funk of Vale a Pena.

It’s been a long wait for São Paulo songsmith Sessa’s follow up to 2022’s sultry and succulent ‘Estrela Acesa’ album. That record, all cosmic haziness wrapped in the soft power…

View Post

View Post

Album Review: Wolfgang Pérez-‘Só Ouço’: Bringing a new avant-pop, no-wave edge to MPB lushness.

Chance happenings sometimes take music to the right place. For Spanish-German, Cologne-based singer-songwriter/arranger Wolfgang Pérez that place is his new succulent album ‘Só Ouço’ out now via Hive Mind Records.…

View Post

View Post

Album Review: Dora Morelenbaum – ‘Pique’: a dynamic new MPB voice which really delivers.

Anyone who caught Bala Desejo’s set-of-the-day at WOMAD UK in the summer would’ve already noted the dynamic Dora Morelenbaum flying in the front line of this exuberant nu-tropicalia band. A…

View Post

View Post

Track/Video : MPB new wave mover Dora Morelenbaum previews incoming album with the lush and lyrical ‘Essa Confusão’.

The jet-stream of MPB may stretch right back to the sixties but it keeps powering onwards with singer/songwriter Dora Morelenbaum right there at the epicentre of this latest surge. She’s…

View Post

View Post

Album Review : Arthur Melo – ‘Mirantes Emocionais’ : a dazzling alt pop escapade from the Brazilian guitarist and composer.

In the same way that last year Bala Dejeso and Ana Frango Elétrico swung the spotlight back on the wild creativity of the Brazilian pop scene, 2024 looks like it’s…

View Post

View Post

Track/Video : Rio producer Ana Frango Elétrico announces new album with delicious, disco-funking single ‘Electric Fish’

Now here’s more signs that the MPB new wave shows no intention of turning tide. Musician/producer Ana Frango Elétrico, one of the key pivots of today’s kaleidoscopic Rio scene is…

View Post

View Post

Album Review: Ricardo Dias Gomes – Muito Sol : re-imagining post rock with a tropicalia soul.

In the shimmers of the recent loss of Os Mutantes founder Rita Lee that follows Gal Costa’s passing last year it’s poignant to get a reminder that music doused with…

View Post

Pages