(Speaking of Buffalo blogs, here's a new one I am happy to recommend: BolognaSnowflake, which is the work of my onetime student/oft-time collaborator/now longtime friend Katie Young. Check it out--it is the Essence of Katie, in handy online form!)
Do not for a moment believe that I have abandoned this here blog, gentle reader. Far from it--I continue taking pictures and making mental, sometimes physical, notes for entries I plan to write. It's only that I am so fucking busy every goddam day lately that there is no time left in the day to keep up with this thing as often as I would like. (Coming soon: my picks for the 2006 Ehmke[e] Awards, announced every year at Thanksgiving. But not tonight.)
Thought I'd try something different tonight and actually write something here while it's fresh in my mind. (Turns out there are things about music that I can quite easily get out of my head, after all...) I have been listening to a CD I just got in the mail today, DJ Ze Pedro's The Brazilian Remixes. It's a good points/bad points compilation of dance-y versions of songs by the likes of Clara Nunes, Elis Regina, Milton Nascimento, Joyce, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso, Marcos Valle, etc.--in other words, some pretty heavy hitters. Some work (Adriana Calcanhotto's "Jogo Linguistico" is a trippy revelation), others don't (the world simply did not need a gay bar-friendly remake of Caetano's "Eclipse Oculto"), but the whole project is inoffensive, even mildly interesting throughout, and well worth the six bucks I paid for it.
Anyway, in my search for reviews or any other writing about the album or the DJ, I came up nearly empty handed except for this item, from a blog that was brand new to me: Made in Brazil: Contemporary Brazilian Music. (Not to be confused with this "Made in Brazil" blog, which consists largely of beefcake shots of hot Brazilian guys who have forgotten to wear shirts.)
From MIB I learned that ...
*Caetano has a new album out! (It appears to be available only in Brazil at the moment, judging from the price Amazon wants for it.)
*The New York Times ran an interesting story on Lenine back in August! ("American audiences might place his music midway between that of Ani DiFranco and that of Rage Against the Machine"--a weird but interesting comparison since he shares a publicist with Ani and she performed with him in Brazil a few years back)
*These podcasts (in Portuguese, but heavy on the music) are supposedly a really nice intro to recent Brazilian instrumental music!
*Brit DJ Gilles Peterson also has some free podcasts available that I bet are going to sound really great!
All things to check out in the near future. When life is calmer, and I do nothing but check out new music and share it with you nice folks.
