I was originally planning to post something tonight singing the praises of the "Global Hit" section of the BBC show The World in general and all the great stuff I've found there lately, but one thing led to another and instead I think I'll zero in on one particular discovery and save a fuller survey for later.
It was this extended segment from the show that introduced me to the music of Tetine, a "punk carioca" duo from Brazil I had previously read about in this entry at The Brazilian Muse. (The link from the name fo the group takes you to their official site, packed with pix, videos, MP3s, and much more; here's the now-obligatory MySpace page.) I was intrigued by the references in the interview with band member Eliete Mejorado to Laurie Anderson, Peaches, and baile funk. My ears really pricked up when I saw that these folks were involved with a compilation of Brazilian post-punk and No Wave I first read about at Slipcue called The Sexual Life of the Savages--basically, Brazil's answer to Lora Logic, Lydia Lunch, and all those other wacky post-post-modern gender-terrorist noise-rockers of the early 80s I love so very much, albeit from a safe distance. (Tetine themselves were not part of that movement, though Mejorado's bandmate Bruno Verner was in some of the groups of that era, and I think they actually curated the collection. From my brief exposure to their own work, it's pretty clear they come straight--or perhaps queerly--out of that scene themselves.)
If the term "Brazilian music" makes you think of bossa nova, samba, or even tropicalia, then you might not quite be ready for this:
or this:
and definitely not this:
Tetine's latest album is called L.I.C.K. My Favela, and in the "Global Hit" interview, Mejorado explains that the title is a dig at all the non-Brazilians (including yours truly) who are forever "discovering" the music of her country, in much the same way that Columbus "discovered" America. Touché! She's also got some fascinating stuff to say about the sexual politics of Brazil, and the fetishization of girl singers from Astrud Gilberto to ... Bebel Gilberto.
(If you want to lick more, this page contains several additional perfomance clips and a few video art pieces, while this one catalogs films, experimental videos, and collaborations. For examples of their earlier work that are nothing like what they're doing now, here's part of a video and CD project with Sophie Calle, and here's a short, artsy-fartsy b&w 1999 film about a threeway by Marcos Farinha.)
No comments:
Post a Comment