#pinduca

As with his African projects, Analog Africa proprietor Samy Ben Redjeb went to the source to explore this music, digging through crates and befriending an eccentric crew of local collectors to find these 19 tracks. In his intricate, exhaustive notes, Redjeb introduces us to Zé Maria, a record collector who spends his days retouching faded album covers with colored pencils and paints to boost their resale value and Marcos Araújo who turned up more than once on his bike, delivering a rarity wrapped in plastic against the rain. The music had been out of favor so long that many of the musicians—never mind the record vendors—couldn’t fathom Redjeb’s interest in it.

And yet, with its exuberantly syncopated rhythms, its swaggering, swooning blares of brass, its hoarse-voiced exchanges of call and response, the music is so very worth hearing. Start, as Jambύ does, with Pinduca, the 1970s innovator who brought Caribbean-influenced Carimbó into the modern age with electric guitars and keyboards and Western-style drum kits. His “Vamos Farrear” is quick-paced and agile, with a plugged in jangle of guitars pushing things forward as a blowsy trombone solos in the interstices; the rush is as 20th century as a third-world traffic jam, while the syncopated rhythms suggest untouched rural outposts.

The project took shape when Redjeb heard another Carimbó star, one Messias Holanda, singing “Carimbó da Pimenta,” via his friend and DJ Carlo Xavier. That track is included here, and it’s easy to see how it could launch an obsession. It rollicks side to side on a pendulous rhythm as Holanda trades joyous verses with an choir of female singers. His growling asides, woven through blaring sax and relentless keyboard offbeats, throw sand into the gears, but the song rolls on undaunted.

The lesser known tracks, too, contain considerable pleasures. A cut called “A Misturada” by Os Muiraquitãns is rather wonderful in its pulsing, rushing, sway; a large ensemble cut, it hops with multiple drum lines, reels with romantic ribbons of brass. “Lundun Da Yaya,” from Grupo da Pesados became another favorite in early listening, a strong strain of West African swagger built into its shaker-heavy samba rhythms.

As usual with Analog Africa, the music is beautifully packaged with long, evocative essays, artists interviews and contemporary photos. The result is a collection that transports you to place and time you’d probably never get to otherwise, rocks your body, feeds your curiosity and makes you feel at home. Well done, I’d say.