Fumaça Preta

Lots of fantastic experimental music has come out of Brazil recently but arguably none of it quite matches the analogue acid-funk racket of Fumaça Preta. That a new Portuguese-language album has even the rock and indie cognoscenti chattering is testament to the impressively deranged efforts of São Paulo native Joel Stones, Portuguese-Venezuelan producer/percussionist Alex Figueira, and Stuart Carter and James Porch of Brighton psych-funksters The Grits.

You could say the record carries on where the compilations Brazilian Guitar Fuzz Bananas and Andy Votel's peerless Brazilika left off, but even that would be selling it short. Opener ‘Pupilas Dilatadas’ sets the tone: guttural, voodoo-like pronouncements and agitated yelps masquerading as lyrics, haunted pandeiro percussion, levitating organ and random B-movie sound effects. It's the truly synapse-shredding single ‘Vou Me Libertar’, however, that kicks it into deep space, with Godzilla-strength funk, shrieking Hammond organ, vintage Doctor Who sonics and straight-from-the-asylum barks.

None of the ingredients here are new but the anarchic ferocity with which they’re slung together is something else. Make no mistake, this is the wildest brand-new yet defiantly retro sound since Melt Yourself Down's debut, a demented tropicália for the 21st century.