Stay True – Boiler Room in Portugal

Music

In my last post I mentioned a lot about how Afrolusobrasilian culture is present in Lisbon. You may also have noticed that I am getting regularly inspired by the Portuguese capital when it comes to sound searching.

I am very happy to confirm that in September I’ll be visiting LISB:ON festival, where I will have a chance to see Brazilian artists like Marcos Valle or Azymuth, not so easy to spot at the concerts these days. This festival, being a part of a summer project called Jardim Sonoro (pt. Sound Garden), will also attract other ambitious electronic music producers such as Matthew Herbert or Dixon, and here is why I would like to dedicate a short paragraph to electronic music in Portugal.

Since currently I’ve been living in Berlin where electronic music can be heard even in grocery shop, no other place on Earth can compete with DJ line ups and a density of EDM producers per square km. However, world can definitely be grateful to Lisboa – Luanda connection for bringing in some truly crazy rhythms to the dancefloors.

Lately, I have taken part in the music production showcase with Dengue Dengue Dengue who were also hosted by the local Boiler Room edition Stay True. More of the inspirational sounds can be seen from its archive:

Stay True: Portugal edition took place a month ago and besides the Dengue Dengue Dengue duo hosted Buraka Som Sistema as well as DJ Marky  whose Boiler Room back in Brazil is already unforgettable classic of its kind.

I am definitely looking forward to re-discovering Lisbon (I can do it anytime anyway at anytime) at my own bpm pace, simply enjoying the musical and cultural diversity.

I hope that thanks to the initiatives like Stay True this city will get even more visibility for the music aficionados.

 

 

sudoeste

Além do mar

Music, Travel

Last days of summer in Europe simply ask for transmitting some uplifting and boogie beats. Fortunately, there are places on Earth, where summer is a state of mind, not just a season. As mentioned before this is the case in the North-Eastern Brazil, be it August or February. European places cannot a comparison to its tropical climate, but I remember some 50 degrees differences between my hometown in Poland and in the South of Portugal where I used to live during a couple of months (-25 vs. 25 Celsius degrees).

Algarve, as we speak, is the most popular region in Portugal among tourists and surfers, but apart from some horrendous towns famous for being actually nothing more than ‘Nordic colonies’ it is indeed a region famous for some best beaches in Europe. From my experience, I would definitely recommend one-of-its-kind islands nearby the rivalry towns Faro and Olhão (like the Ilha Deserta or Ilha do Farol) for those who love endless sand-scapes. On the other hand, beaches located nearby Sagres or Aljezur are amazingly rocky and the waves are the best for those who love to surf more than anything else. The windward site is still considered to be less affected by the massive tourism, and if you have enough time, visiting sites in the Sud Oeste Alentejano National Park is a brilliant idea. However, for bird-watching aficionados, like my friend Krzysztof (for Polish speakers I recommend his hillarious blog about ‘the ones that fly’ http://volucrescoeli.wordpress.com) the leeward coast would be a delight, due to various deltas and natural reservoirs of Ria Formosa National Park for flamingos and storks, to name very basic few. More about Algarve to come, yet to illustrate its sunny, sandy and summery wonders I chose one of my fave remixes of DJ Marky, about what’s beyond the sea.

Wiki:

Além do mar – beyond the sea (taken from the Djavan’s – Nereci, one of the Brazilian classic’s lyrics)

Ilha Deserta – Deserted Island

Ilha do Farol – Lighthouse Island

Sexta – feira da simpaticona!

Music, Personal

Sexta-feira, or ‘Sex’ as an abbreviation, means the 6th day of the week, Friday it is in Portuguese. I remember the confusion this word caused to my visitors when I was living in Portugal and they saw the ‘S’ word popping all of a sudden in the newspapers or TV weather programmes… This original name means that it is the sixth (sexta) day of a trade (feira), after the Jewish Sabbath (sabado). Actually from Monday till Friday the names of the week are referred in numbers, starting from Segunda-feira. To shorten this long description, on a daily basis you can rather hear/see in a spoken/written Portuguese: 2a – Monday, 3a – Tuesday, 4a – Wednesday, 5a – Thursday and 6a – Friday).

Anyway, hoje é sexta-feira de manhã, and I am preparing my short getaway to Ibiza to meet my lovely friends there. Looking forward not only to some entertainment, but also to reconnecting with nature and spending time at glorious beaches in the less-touristic parts of the island. This is why I keep listening this Jobim’s my all-time jazzy/bossanova/psychedelic fave about the beauty of Brazilian sertão, endangered nature and indigenous people.

However, as it is Friday in August 2014, I just cannot post this year’s revelation to Brazilian dancefloors, a funny track describing extremely nice type of a person at the party, aka simpaticona da boate. Basically, whatever you ask, simpaticona will give you!

Find below the original version (might be ‘too much’ imo) and intriguing DJ Marky’s remix.

Happy weekend (fds – fim de semana) is about to commence!

Wiki:

Sexta – feira (abbreviation ‘Sex’) – Friday

Hoje é sexta-feira de manhã – today is the Friday morning (lyrics taken from Jobim’s ‘Borzeguim’)

Sertão – rural inland area of Brazil

Simpaticona – (extremely) nice person

Boate – (Brazilian) party

Sambaloco – on the joyful side of drum’n’bass

Music, Travel

This time I would like to focus on the meaning that Brazilian artists had on the evolution of the drum and bass style. The discovery of the Brazilian d’n’b in my case coincided with the first clubbing experiences sometime around 2001. Based in the city half-way between Berlin and Warsaw, I remember these days were quite inspirational. There was an interesting drum’n’bass movement in the Polish capital, before the clubbing scene went mostly handbag, and it inspired some smaller cities like Poznań to create various underground places in the Old Town. It was also the year of releasing a very influential mix: DJ Marky’s Brazilian Job. I bet I heard it for the first time in the legendary Radiostacja alternative radio programme, in the late-night show ‘Drum and bass cały czas’ and it knocked me literally off my feet!

DJ Marky is already a living legend of the Brazilian electronic music, together with DJ Patife, Drumagick, and on a lighter note: Kaleidoscopio, to name very few who added an important value to what has already been discovered in the UK. The title of the post comes from a remarkable compilation which gave to the world some of the all-time relevant anthems like Fernanda Porto’s ‘Sambassim’ or ‘So Tinha de Ser com Voce’ remixes.

They firstly revolutionized the scene throughout Brazil, starting off in Sampa (aka SP, Sao Paulo), and later on in the UK (with DJ Marky’s residence at The End and recently in Fabric London). In the first decade of the 2000s Brazilian d’n’b became truly an exportation good.

Even if nowadays d’n’b became just a marginalised part of the ‘bass’ music, I still admire the unique style of combining the Brazilian classics with the energetic beats. The Brazilian d’n’b golden age was so powerful as if the music was to describe the high hopes spirits of those years. This spirit I found nowhere else, but in the North-Eastern region of the country, contrary to the statistics. Most of the cities in the region are still struggling with violence, uncontrolled urbanization processes and poverty, but each year the conditions are improving thanks to the economic development and the politics introduced in the era of the President Lula da Silva. To me, Brazilian d’n’b pictures the changes in the North-Eastern region, with some of the most impressive beaches, cuisine and weather for surfers on Earth, approximately 365 days of sun and wind per year and still, with some striking poverty and inequalities. In my humble opinion, Brazilian d’n’b, full of energy, yes-we-can attitude and creativity, should become a national musical product to share and promote the country, to top up with samba and bossanova.