Oi! A Nova Musica Brasileira!

by various artists

This two-disc compilation contains forty tracks by forty different groups or artists, and encompasses a wide variety of musical genres.  There's alternative/leftfield pop, rock, folk, dub, electronica, tropicalia, manguebeat, tecnobrega, carimbo, punk-forro, hip-hop, jazz, trip-hop, and regional music.  The only connecting link between these songs is that all of the music comes from contemporary Brazilian artists.

And man, is there some good music coming out of Brazil right now.  The curators of this compilation have identified each artist by their city or region, although they are played randomly on the discs.  The fold-out liner notes provide some information on each artist, although it quickly devolves into jargon-heavy obscurity:  "New Romantic tinged folktronic ode", "psychedelic Afro-punk hip hop", and "tropical rock-funk meets mangue hip-hop with a nod to Parliament".

Descriptions like that make you want to listen, don't they?  This collection does a terrific job of revealing the rich diversity of Brazil's modern culture.  It's nice to see that it's not all Bossa Nova from the 60s, although that's pretty damn nice too...