Arthur Verocai's long-lost solo LP straddles the continents to fuse Brazilian ropicalia with American funk, yielding a shimmering, dreamlike mosaic of sound that both celebrates and advances the creative spirit. Employing a dizzyingly lush 20-piece string section, stiletto-sharp bursts of brass, and electric piano melodies that twinkle like stars, Verocai's heady productions draw on folk, jazz, and pop traditions from both sides of the equator to make music that is both immediately familiar and quite unlike anything else you've ever experienced. While its sun-kissed arrangements and insistent rhythms clearly evoke its Brazilian origins, Arthur Verocai nevertheless seems to exist somewhere far outside of space and time.
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 t...