Brazil With Bianca Lopes

Diana's release, to Brazil with love (2011), is a tribute to the samba and bossa nova traditions of Brazil. The album features the most adventurous instrumentation to date. Maninho Costa and Silas Silva add Brazilian rhythms on drums and percussion, while Kiki Misumi on cello and Bill McBirnie on flute add colour and texture. Don and Reg are still the mainstay of the trio and provide delightful accompaniment and soloing throughout.

Tania Maria's debut is a mix of hushed bossa numbers and up-tempo, jazz-inflected sambas that show off the prowess of her nine-piece band. "Zé," which belongs to the latter category, is an original tune that begins with Maria's slightly over-the-top scatting and builds into a kickin' samba jam; on "Para Chick," a Tom Jobim instrumental, the group is at its most improvisational, with Maria herself (on piano) dishing out some fine solos; and on the tempo-shifting "Ideias E Ideias," Maria manages to sound like Astrud Gilberto and Ella Fitzgerald within the span of a few chord changes. Though it's heavy on the standard bossa/samba fare, it's also a uniformly solid album and a fine introduction to Maria's catalog.

A point of view indeed. One musician’s of course, but that of an individual who’s proved - over many a year - to be as scene-enduring as he’s been artistically inspirational. Whilst Zoo Brazil may not make longplayers all that often, when he delivers, they typically become classics in their own right or simply works of electronic art.
The auteurish nature of John Andersson has given those releases the cachet, not simply of influence and cool, but evermore of rarity. Its title a casual allusion to John’s sonic bearing, ‘Point Of View’ is his first album statement since 2012’s ‘Any Moment Now’. Specifically that bearing encompasses the strata of classic, deep and tech house, with its tracks existing without exception in the hinterlands between…