Search - Ian Pooley :: Brazilution 5.3

Good, but far from Great

bordersj2 | Boston | 01/30/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I'll skip some of the history of the series and give the abbreviated version. Brazilution is like a sister series to Audiopharm's "Brazilectro" franchise. It was started by the founders of Brazilution but is released on the Ministry of Sound Germany label. It spans three volumes now with the first being released back in 2003 and this one released in 2005. The number 5.3 is probably given to the series because it was released at the same time as "Brazilectro vol 5" and it was quite confusing - so 5.3 is after Brazilectro, but volume 3. I think. I love the Brazilution series - the mood of all of them is more on the chilled out vibe. However in 2004 they switched to a format where regular sun-drenched/relaxed beach-going songs were on disc one while disc two had some Brazilian inspired club cuts.



Volume 3 was compiled by Ian Pooley and is no different in that aspect but in terms of the music, it's VERY different from its predecessors. Disc one is loaded with MPB and kicks off with the dreamy Gal Costa track "Vatapa" and rolls in a similar vibe into Nara Leao's adorable "Alem Do Horizonte". Other highlights on disc one were Jorge Ben's "Take It Easy My Brother Charles", Janice feat. Concorde à L'Orange's "Sparkling Desire" (wonderful stuff) and Rosanna & Zélia's "Sobre a Solidao". Disc 2 is clubbed up and starts out magically with masters of fusion Azymuth providing a romantic guitar laced cut called "Tropical Rain". That's followed up with Sven Van Hees's "Summer Serenade", a nice deep house track. Other top songs on this were Los Ladrones "Go Bianco!", a great song with a neat build-up and roll to it - festive cut. A Bossa Eletrica's "Veija o Sol" is also provided, remixed by the Spiritual South with a nice club beat to it and then there's the highlight: Nathan Haines feat. Guida De Palma of Jazzinho. The song is "O Misterio" and it's a sweet 12" cut with a broken beat and very dreamy vibe to it. I also did like Yasushi Ide's cut that followed it.. remixed by M.A.W. it's given a real housed up face-lift - I'd forgotten about the cut and it's on the old Bossa Mundo album from about 5-6 years ago.



But this did have it's share of problems. Particularly, this one wasn't very consistent and disc two had some poor cross-fade work in it while a few tracks were beyond head-scratchers, like an older track by Slow Supreme titled "Granada". Good song but better left on a few other compilations - it just didn't fit into this release at all. Meanwhile there were problems with "O Misterio"'s before and after the cut and speaking of "Granada" that one was a bit awry too. Disc one wasn't particularly consistent in sound or in originality to be honest but it was easily the stronger of the two discs. Disc two really is far from having anything at all to do with "Brasil" with the exception of a select few songs being sung in Portuguese. It missed the mark.



In general strength, this one just doesn't measure up to volume 5.2 or the consistency of volume 5 (5.1) but I'd still recommend it - the four stars is a bit generous - I'd say about 3.5 is justice for it and I have to give credit for the quality original/un-released tracks. This is a solid release which I did enjoy and it was never released in the USA. I'm not sure yet if there will be a volume 4 in this series; buzz doesn't start until end of March or April. However if you do like this, you may also like the Brazil 5000 series (it's at 4 volumes now), the Bossa House N' Break's out of Japan is also a terrific series, although difficult to find. And you may also like "Bossa Tres... Jazz: Step Into the Gallery" and a compilation called "A Night in Rio".

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