At one point I imagined an alternate movie universe in the 1970’s where white private dicks were the sex machines with all the chicks. Gritty suburban dramas were created with pulsing scores as smooth dressing detectives (with no ties to The Man), played on both sides of the law, without losing their cool. My imaginary trend was called Whitesploitation and the soundtracks I imagined featured the music of Tom Scott, Brian Auger, and the king of the genre, David Axelrod. Alas, this was just a dream, and all I was left with was a mix tape.There was another record I heard recently that didn’t quite fit the whitesploitation formula, but it did remind me of my dream. Funky beats, swirling strings, and charging horns combined with Brazilian flavors (which makes a lot of sense, since the record is Brazilian).
Arthur Verocai’s self titled 1972 record could have easily been the soundtrack to a hard-boiled detective thriller set on the streets of Sao Paulo. Normally I get my Brazilian music news from favela-masters "Dejoe":http://mog.com/Dejoe and "ivylander":http://mog.com/ivylander , and I don’t really know if this record is representative of this artist or this period in Brazil’s music history, but it sounds a little different than what I’ve heard before. It incorporates some early electronic touches (thinking Stereolab/Shuggie Otis) , a smidgen of jazz funk, and what I can only describe as a lo-fi midnight movie sound. Unfortunately for my wallet, I have a feeling that records like this might be the tip of a Brazilian iceberg that is gonna send me to the poor house…happy.
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Aff, that… a beautiful instruments! Very rich…