Solid
bordersj2 | Boston | 03/03/2006
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Well... at least the front cover's different! There's a positive. The first edition of this one had the exact same cover as a Decadance compilation series; it was pretty funny and had a thing or two to say about the overall originality of the cd (it came out just under 3 years ago). This is one of the smaller compilation series though that specializes in nu-Bossa and Brazil music.
It's not bad, but it's far from being great. This series is a cross-faded mix, starting with Cyz's "Que Zomba". I liked the opening track and even Electro Coco's "Arte de Chiacao" until they went a bit crazy with the cuica sample. For those that remember Racoon's "Sensacao" from 2001, think along the lines of that. Other songs that stood out were RioListic's "Uma Saudade" which I honestly think would have had a great mood in another lineup, evne if the lyric gets a bit too much. I also liked Geni Pereira's track... it actually had some good soulful touches in it. Carla hassett's "Tao Legal" was okay but is screaming to be enhanced in a remix. Meanwhile Martin East Project's "Neverending", remixed by John Beltran is given his festive Miami feel although it too gets repetitive.
Again, this wasn't a bad release. I do give it credit for being seemingly more Brasil influenced than Brazilution 5.3 from a few months before it. But some of the songs on here were pretty weak/life-less and you're hard pressed not to press the FF button often to get to the next engaging cut. That's one of the dangers from a label sampler that's pushing specific artists - sometimes they'll be quality like Schema & Ziriguiboom/Crammed (Six Degrees) or they'll be a little off the mark like Bossa & Go. But if you do like this, be sure to check out the original along with the Cafe Samba series which is a spitting image of these in format and darn close to identical in track selections."