Banda Sonora: Música para Filmes

Apart from big hitters like Antonio Pinto, it's relatively rare to see music written for Brazilian cinema enjoying any kind of soundtrack release, never mind an international one. This then, is truly a rare treat: a whole album's worth of assorted film and documentary music from one of the country's true sonic pioneers. A veteran of the Recife scene and one of the founders of the mangue beat movement, DJ Dolores has been soldering the rusty edges of traditional Pernambucan sounds to shiny new technology for nigh-on two decades. That dub and reggae haunt his finest celluloid creations is not surprising, given that you’re as likely to hear The Melodians’ ‘Rivers of Babylon’ blasting out of the beer stands on Recife's mean inner-city streets as anything else. The mesmerising ‘Satie Dub’ follows on from Chicha Libre's own spectral take on Erik Satie's ‘Gnossiene No 1’, with the spirit of Augustus Pablo never far from the mix. Pablo also hovers over the exquisite ‘Alcool’, fittingly subtitled ‘Bolero Filosófico’. And special mention has to go to closer ‘Setúbal’, a discordant glut of industrial noise, percussion and atmospheric sounds primed for the darkest of film noir. Marvellous stuff.