Month: August 2008

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Cartola – O mundo é um moinho (1976)

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Cartola
O mundo é um moinho
1976 Discos Marcus Pereira

1. O Mundo É Um Moinho
2. Minha
3. Sala De Recepção
4. Não Posso Viver Sem Ela
5. Preciso Me Encontrar
6. Peito Vazio
7. Aconteceu
8. As Rosas Não Falam
9. Sei Chorar
10. Ensaboa Mulata
11. Senhora Tentação
12. Cordas De Aço

The opening title track was written for Cartola’s daughter who left their home in Mangueira at 16 and (in the story I’ve heard, anyway) ended up working as a prostitute. It’s a classic, as is all of this record and especially ‘Sala de recepção’, ‘Aconteceu’, ‘Preciso me encontrar’, ‘As rosas não falam’… So many great songs!! Although Cartola had been instrumental to the development of samba during the 1930s and ran the most famous samba club in Rio with his wife Zica beginning in the early 60s, he did not record any material until the age of 66. This is his second album. You can read more about Cartola in a brief article at Wikipedia here, which is also where I grabbed the lyrics and a decent translation of the above mentioned track. I don’t think I really understood samba until I heard Cartola’s first two records. Ever since then, I’ve been in love with the art form. This is samba at it’s best, period.

O mundo é um moinho

Ainda é cedo, amor.
Mal começaste a conhecer a vida,
Já anuncias a hora de partida
Sem saber mesmo o rumo que irás tomar.

Preste atenção, querida,
Embora eu saiba que estás resolvida.
Em cada esquina cai um pouco tua vida.
Em pouco tempo não serás mais o que és.

Ouça-me bem, amor.
Preste atenção, o mundo é um moinho.
Vai triturar teus sonhos tão mesquinhos,
Vai reduzir as ilusões a pó.

Preste atenção, querida.
De cada amor tu herdarás só o cinismo.
Quando notares estás à beira do abismo.
Abismo que cavaste com teus pés.

Translation:

It’s still early, love.
You’ve barely started to know life,
You already announce the hour of departure
Without even knowing the direction you’ll take.

Pay attention, dear,
Although I know that you made up your mind
In each corner falls a little your life
Soon you’ll no longer be what you are.

Listen carefully, love.
Pay attention, the world is a mill.
It will grind your paltry dreams,
It will reduce your illusions to dust.

Pay attention, dear.
From each love, you’ll inherit only cynicism.
When you notice, you’re at the edge of the abyss.
Abyss you dug with your own feet.

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Sparks video, Top of the Pops 1974

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Ever walked into a place and had the palpable sense that there was somebody, perhaps multiple bodies, that didn’t want you there? Happened to me this weekend. I stayed, I danced, I talked to my real friends, I ate greasy diner food afterwards. But I’ve had this Sparks song going through my head ever since. Try it, it helps. The tune is “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us” and it is a roaring opening to their classic album, Kimono My House. This was actually a hit song if you can believe it. The video is from the UK program Top of the Pops and features the band pretending to play the song. Note that Russell Mael is particularly bad at lip-synching, and Ron Mael is, well, Ron Mael. Thanks to Beth in Chicago for turning me on to Sparks back in the day. Complete lyrics to this brilliant gem can be found here. Note also that they don’t actually finish the song before ToTP decides they’re done…

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BITRATE MISTAKE, please re-download

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Several recent uploads were listed as 320/kbs, the bitrate that I INTENDED to encode at. Somehow, these were ctually somewhere around 160-170 — a horribly and very lossy-sounding bit depth indeed. Conversion was done with dbPoweramp set at 320/kbs Average Bit Rate (ABR), and somehow all files converted at this setting ended up at about half that!

PLEASE for the love of God, redownload these. The following links have been replaced and if you grabbed these shares before the afternoon of August 25, I recommend replacing them with these:

Trio Mocotó (1973)
Jorge Ben – Força Bruta (1970)
Jorge Ben – Jorge Ben (1969)
My apologies for the inconvenience!

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Jorge Ben – Força Bruta (1970) 320kbs ABR

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JORGE BEN
Força Bruta
Original release 1970
Dusty Groove America reissue 2007

This is a fantastic record. I was wrong with crediting the 1969 to Trio Mocotó yesterday — I believe the partnership actually began with this record. Formerly very difficult to track down, Dusty Groove has done us all a public service by making it available again!! BUY A COPY today

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Jorge Ben “Forca Bruta” (Philips, 1970)
A dreamy, relaxed album made with the Trio Mocoto (see below for more info about them…) A couple of the songs on here are regularly included on anthologies (“O Telefone Tocou Novamente,” “Charles, Jr.”) but most of this album is material that tragically has been on the backshelf for decades… I suppose this is the sort of album that you have to settle into — it’s very pretty and very laid back, cloaking a funky undercurrent in an acoustic samba wash, and intensely seductive. Why this album remains out of print is a real mystery

review from DGA
A fantastically soulful album from Jorge Ben — one of his greatest records ever, and a key part of Brazilian music in the 70s! The album marks an earthier shift for Jorge — a sound that’s still rooted in the samba influences of the 60s, but which also takes on a bit more soul at the bottom — thanks to rhythmic contributions from Trio Mocoto, who work here famously to help Ben shape the overall feel of the set! There’s still a bit of larger orchestrations at moments, but these are used sparingly just to sweeten the sound — leaving the main force of the music to come from Jorge’s guitar, and the cuica, percussion, and tamborim of the trio. The vocals are wonderful too — slightly raspy, and with a bit more feeling than we ever remember Jorge having on record — sometimes a bit intimate, yet always with an undeniable presence throughout. One of those records that still sends chills up our spines, year after year — with tracks that include “Oba La Vem Ela”, “Ze Canjica”, “Pulo Pulo”, “Apareceu Aparecida”, “Terezinha”, “Mulher Brasileira”, “Forca Bruta”, “O Telefone Tocou Novamente”, and “Charles Junior”.

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TECHNICAL NOTE about playlists

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Dear readers.. I refuse to use I-Tunes to play or organize music (until they have native support for FLAC, i.e. never, I will continue to use Foobar2000 or, in a pinch, WinAmp). But since many people do, including my friends who regularly visit this blog, I thought I would mention something technical. Some of you may be experiencing the phenomenon of ending up with 2 copies of every song in your I-Tunes. This is most likely because you are importing the entire folder, and that folder contains an m3u playlist. The way to prevent this is to import ONLY the m3u file — it’s the file that only contains the name of the artist and album. This will result in importing only one copy of each track. The inverse way to do this is to exclude the m3u file and import all the rest, but I think the first option is easier. m3u playlists are probably used more widely with other players besides I-tunes, but I’m afraid I won’t be making any concessions to Itunes users — you’ll just have to deal with it. 😉

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Jorge Ben – Jorge Ben (1969) 320 kbs ABR

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Jorge Ben
‘JORGE BEN’
1969 Philips

1. Criola
2. Domingas
3. Cade Tereza
4. Barbarella
5. Pais Tropical
6. Take It Easy My Brother Charles
7. Descobri Que Eu Sou Um Anjo
8. Bebete Vaobora
9. Quem Foi Que Roubou A Sopeira De Porcelana Chinesa Que A Vovo Ganhou Da Baronesa?
10. Que Pena
11. Charles, Anjo 45

This is an essential album from Jorge Ben and (until just this year!) has been rather scarce to track down. NOTE ** This rip comes from the original Philips CD pressing and not from the one on Dusty Groove’s label. ** I will probably get the latter in the near future and I could post it here, but I recommend everyone give their money to Dusty Groove America anyway because they are the GREATEST RECORD STORE OF ALL TIME and deserve it. They’ve been very picky about what music they reissue, exercising their world-famous exquisite taste — but I’d love to see them reissue more goodies so give them your $$ and help ’em out!

All of Jorge Ben’s material up through the late 70s is golden, but this period of 1969-1976 was especially fruitful. This album marks a new chapter in his discography, considerably broadening out his sound pallete. His records of the mid-70s (A Tábua de Esmeralda especially) would get slightly more experimental than this one, but this album contains the track “Descobri que eu sou um anjo” (I discovered that I am an angel), which surely ranks as Ben’s strangest composition yet still manages to groove. Incidentally, I saw Caetano Veloso perform this track as an encore during his last tour — it was the highlight of the show for me, since his new record was rather lackluster and he was being backed the Brazilian equivalent of U2 in 1990 (this is not a compliment, FYI). But to come back on stage and play this “deep cut” for an American audience 95% of which wouldn’t recognize it — well, I forgave Caetano for the misguided ‘rocker’ persona he’s been flauting lately. This Jorge Ben record ought to be as famous and ubiquitous as Caetano’s 1969 “white album”, or other gems from 69 like Abbey Road. It’s a milestone and always a pleasure.

(from Dusty Groove dot com)

A samba soul masterpiece from Jorge Ben — one of the most brilliant records to come out the fertile late 60s Brazilian scene — and an incredible album that works with the psychedelic flourishes of Ben’s contemporaries and a deeper undercurrent of soul & funk! This is one of the most amazing early Jorge Ben LPs, recorded at the end of the 60s, when Jorge was singing with a stone-cold soul sound. The sharp, tight arrangements by Rogerio Duprat & Jose Briamonte made tracks like “Pais Tropical”, “Take It Easy My Brother Charles”, and “Que Pena” immediate classics — while the percussion and rhythms of Trio Mocoto provide a good part of the unique backdrop. The album is a mix of funky samba, soaring Brazilian soul, and sweeping orchestrations that give the whole thing a jazzy finish — and it’s some of the best work that Jorge Ben ever recorded! Other tracks include “Criola”, Cade Tereza”, “Domingas”, “Barbarella”, “Quem Foi Que Roubou A Sopeira” and more.

(From Wikiepedia)

“In 1969, Jorge Ben released his self-titled album amid the excitement of the cultural and musical Tropicália movement. The album featured Trio Mocotó as his backing band, who would go on to launch a successful career on the back of their association with Ben. The album was noted for “País Tropical,” one of his most famous compositions, although it would be Wilson Simonal who would take his recording of the song to the top of the charts in Brazil that same year. Instead, the song “Charles, Anjo 45″, also from the self-titled album, would become Ben’s biggest self-performed chart hit of the year.”

(From Slipcue dot com… Incidentally I think he’s wrong in his interpretation of the manacles but that’s neither here nor there…)

Jorge Ben “Jorge Ben” (Philips, 1969)
An excellent album, with some of his catchiest songs, many of which often make it onto best-of compilations. Wildly inventive, syncretic, experimental pop music, ranging from San Francisco-sound psychedelia to spaghetti western schmaltz, and deep, heavy samba-soul. The album is both soulful and playful, as when he sings the last half of one song in a funny voice, with his nose pinched shut, or when the string section veers into bent-note atonality. The album art shows Ben with the emblem of the Flamengo futbol team on his guitar, and broken manacles on his wrists — the latter presumably a powerful statement about the military dictatorship which was running the country at the time, and actively trying to repress the tropicalia movement. One of his best records… definitely worth tracking down!