Desconstrução

No one's been doing a better job at bringing São Paulo, Brazil's never-ending megalopolis, to life in recent years than a fluid collective of musicians and songwriters who call themselves Clube da Encruza. Metá Metá is the most prominent of the groups and their songs, and those of their members’ solo projects, feature heavily here, along with selections by Rodrigo Campos and Tom Zé collaborator Vicente Barreto. The starting point for many of these tracks is samba but seen through a progressive spirit and modern viewpoint that also incorporates post-punk guitar, free jazz sax, metronomic bass and African rhythms. These are, after all, the same musicians who subverted Elza Soares’ sound on her recent return-to-form A Mulher do Fim do Mundo.

Thus we get to hear Metá Metá's direct Afro-punk, Rodrigo Campos’ string-led paeans of migration (his collaboration with Criolo on ‘Ribeirão’ is heavenly), Thiago França's instrumental space jazz and Juçara Marçal's incredible capacity to evoke Afro-Brazilian gods and goddesses. All in all, it's a firm reminder of the sheer quality of their collective work over these past five or six years; a more than welcome release.