VARIOUS ARTISTS

It’s the 25th anniversary of this criminally under-appreciated compilation of Brazilian pop music (New! More! Better!), so we’re putting it on vinyl for the first time. Here’s what the guy behind the compilation had to say about it when we put it out: “Brazilians are the original masters of mixology, blend and hybridization. We’re just catching up to what they’ve been doing for years, decades even. It’s been 10 years since we at Luaka Bop released our first compilation of Brazilian music. Beleza Tropical. It sold extremely well, 350,000 and still going strong, but a lot has happened since then. That first record reflected the coming of age, the maturity, of the tropicalismo generation–the late 60’s revolutionary movement in the arts that advocated cultural cannibalism: absorbing, “eating” and appropriating anything and everything from anywhere. This new collection reflects the impact and energy of a new generation who rather than seeking to overturn or discredit the work of its predecessors, wants to build on it, add to it, and continue absorbing greater and more contemporary influences. Rap, sampling, psychedelia, new and no-wave, funk and punk are routinely swallowed up and mixed with a myriad of Brazilian styles— the swing ofsamba ,the pounding massed drums of Bloco Afro ,the dance grooves of axé. The result is so transcendent, so full of life, that it counters the negativity of all the shit that’s going down, to paraphrase the Isleys. The music fights the power.”