Matuto

With a name translating as ‘country bumpkin’ New York city slickers Matuto seek a common cause between the backwoods of the US and those of Brazil, with a bit of chicha-esque twang thrown in for good measure. Based as they are in Brooklyn, it'd be easy to draw parallels with Chicha Libre, at least going by the Sivuca-meets-Dick Dale dash of opener, ‘Dois Nordes Tres’ and blinding closer, ‘Dream of Life. However the knotty, restless compositions of accordionist Rob Curto and guitarist Clay Ross (together with a cosmopolitan troupe of NY folk and jazz alumni, including bassist Edward Perez, fiddler Rob Hect and Klezmatics/Herbie Hancock percussionist Richie Barshay) coalesce into a much more ambiguous proposition. The fact that the bluegrass-pure ‘Church Street Blues, the straight-up forró of ‘Sanfoneiro Bêbo’ and the vintage Brazilian jazz-funk of ‘Maracatu Dos Anjos’ sound like three completely different bands doesn't detract from the striking alloys concocted elsewhere on the album. It all suggests a band primed to push boundaries: a thrillingly gutteral rendition of Blind Willie Johnson's ‘John the Revelator’, re-set to the wink and grind of berimbau and agogô; the frantic Telecaster vs Indian flute and Appalachian fiddle face-off of ‘Recife’; and the blithe, Smiths-go-to-Carnaval contradiction of ‘What a Day’. If they can resist the tendency to over-egg the extended accordion workouts, a rosy, genre-bending future surely awaits.