São Paulo is a bed of coals right now for Experimental music, and has spawned a new genre called Samba Sujo or “Dirty Samba” - which is a mix experimental rock, punk and avant-garde, informed by one of Brazil’s national styles, Samba.
Elza Soares
"The Woman at the End of the World"
Elza Soares is an iconic singer - like, a household name - and on this new record (A Mulher do Fim do Mundo) she is matched up with a band of young, experimental, cutting edge brazilian musicians.
On our first night in the city, Kent and I got locked in a graveyard.
We had walked in after dark, and when we came back the gate was closed, and the whole place was surrounded by an 8 foot wall covered in razor wire.
As we looked for a hole in the wire, I started thinking about impermanence. People had lived out entire lives here before I even knew it existed. And what was left, was the whole thing. The city, the food, the music. All of it.
In the movie Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee has a brief scene where he is training with a student and at the end of the lesson he points to the sky.
“It is like a finger pointing away to the moon.” he says “Don’t concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all of the heavenly glory.”
Sitting in the woods, looking into the fire, you notice the same thing. If you focus on every piece of wood, you miss the heat. But if you focus on the heat, you realize the wood is just there to sustain it. And it will inevitably crumble into self, and you’ll simply add more wood.
We found a hole in the wire and climbed out of the graveyard.
Pinheiros translates to Pine Trees. Before it was a neighborhood, it was a pine forest.
Winter solstice in São Paulo
Music:
The Bell Always Toll for Them ** - Dpsmkr
Firmeza, Luz Vermelha and Maria da Vila Matilde - Elza Soares
Not from Concentrate - Yclept insan
** Episode correction: I credited the Dpsmkr song "The Bell Always Toll for them" as "For whom the bell tolls". Sorry to Jonas of Dpsmkr -- It is linked above!