Bixiga 70

During the opening notes of Bixiga 70’s self-titled debut album,  you’d be forgiven for thinking you were listening to the beginning of a Fela Kuti track, with Tony Allen’s sparse percussion gearing up in the background. But when the tension is finally released, it is Bixiga 70’s brass section that kicks in, trading horn solos in a crescendo of sound. “Balbao de Silva” sounds like an energetic blaxploitation soundtrack,  while elsewhere the São Paulo ten-piece channel the Highlife and Afrobeat of 1970s Ghana and Nigeria, all mixed in with a dose of Afro-Brazilian funk. It’s a musical world that blurs the lines of time and place with intoxicating results.