Working from a clean slate, free of any burden of cultural authenticity, groups like Mundo Livre S/A and Naçao Zumbi began to distill a local sound incorporating rock, electronica, hinterland folk, and the plethora of rhythms – forró, maracatú, côco and seemingly endless others – from this tropical zone where Portuguese colonization began, both geographically and culturally close to Africa.
Judging from the body of work on this stellar compilation, the mangue (mangrove) sound, as it’s called, survived the accidental death in 1997 of its leader Chico Science and continues to generate sounds that transcend, among other barriers, the distinction between rustic and cosmopolitan.
Rarely does a compilation album present so much diversity yet make so much sense as a collection, which testifies to Recife’s power as a creative locale – indeed, makes you want to get on the first plane and check it out. With a number of older entries – the drum-and-bass on Mundo Livre’s “Maroca,” for instance, is a 1990s dead giveaway – the collection doesn’t quite answer the question that its title poses, which makes it more of a crash course than an up-to-the-minute snapshot, and renders that trip to Recife all the more urgent.
– Siddhartha Mitter
Pernambuco (Luaka Bop)