Rough Guide to Brazilian Café

That the 50s singer Connie Francis was not so long ago hot DJ currency in Sao Paulo is perhaps the most revelatory note struck in this round-up of Brazil's contemporary music. Compiler John Armstrong spins an erudite and insightful back-story in his liner notes, yet the music only delivers in fits and starts. The likes of Ceú and Cibelle should be familiar to most, sighing over sinuous electro, coolly equivocal about Brazil's brave new world, and sounding positively detached next to the spindrift escapism of old timers like Os Ipanemas. Luciana Mello, daughter of Jair Rodrigues, offers a passable take on straight-up US R&B with ‘Nha Galha Do Cajueiro’, while Marcel Powell – son of Baden – pretty much follows in his dad's footsteps. DJ Tudo, aka Alfredo Bellos, comes with no dynastic strings attached, but if anyone's going to hybridise Brazilian music into something genuinely innovative, it might just be him: ‘Gaita Mestra’ comes on like a cosmic-dub update of the early 1970s flute and fiddle rave-ups on Nonesuch's classic Caribbean field recording, An Island Carnival.

Kudos to Armstrong for also turning up the soulful mineiro canção of Jussara Silveira, and for introducing Rio Grande Do Sul singer-songwriter Vitor Ramil, who puts Caetano Veloso to work on a Jorge Luis Borges poem, and whose effects-whooshing collaborations with percussionist Marcos Suzano fill an interesting, if often merely pleasant, bonus disc. There are shades of Argentinian roots, portentous, Kàtia B-enhanced cine-psyche and, on standout ‘Invento, even a trace of cult 60s follde, Jackson C Frank.