VARIOUS - Onda De Amor: Synthesized Brazilian Hits That Never Were 1984-94 (Soundway) Some crate-digging compilations are often the result of someone hand-picking their choice favourites from another country’s musical history, perhaps unaware or uninvolved with its cultural lineage in the process. On Soundway’s latest release - a treasure trove of synth jams, pop, samba boogie, Balearic and electro from 1980 & 90s Brazil - the tracks are picked by Millos Kaiser, one half of the Brazilian duo Selvagem, who is at the helm of throwing some of the country's best dance parties. It’s a rare compilation that offers Brazilian music actually picked by a Brazilian.
This collection of sixteen tracks doesn’t comprise tracks scoured from deeply in-demand records, the rare sort that sell for eye-watering sums and that collectors spend years tracking down.
This collection of sixteen tracks doesn’t comprise tracks scoured from deeply in-demand records, the rare sort that sell for eye-watering sums and that collectors spend years tracking down. They are the sort you’d find for a few quid should you come across but, as Kaiser says, “the problem is finding them. They aren’t rare because everyone wants a copy but because no one wants them, not even the dealers.”
It’s a release that is loaded with smooth grooves, bubbling bass, glistening synthesisers, funk strutting guitar lines and sheen of production that undeniably marks it of its time. Listening through Onda De Amor is akin to opening up a perfectly preserved time capsule and being transported back to a time and place that feels otherworldly in its transformative abilities.
For Kaiser this compilation is about reintroducing music during a period of reappraisal, catching a new wave and hoping contemporary listeners will ride it with him. “The idea is to do justice to these songs. Songs that combine all the right ingredients that should have put them on radio playlists when I was growing up or at least in the cases of more adventurous DJs”.
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