Balnearico – The Sunny Side of Brazil’s Underground Pop

via Wax Poetics: “Balnearico is the word we came up with when trying to find a concept that would embrace the feeling one can get from listening to these sunny, bright songs produced in the late ’70s up to the mid-’80s, no matter the genre they’re attached to—funk, rock, boogie, reggae, disco, electro, et cetera,” comments the São Paulo DJ duo Millos Kaiser and Trepanado, who go by Selvagem and created this Balnearico mix exclusively for Wax Poetics.

“This neologism is a blend of balearic (the laidback style that descends from the music played in the ’80s in the Spanish Islas Baleares, specially Ibiza) and balneário, the Portuguese word that’s synonymous for beach—so yes, in our effort of uncovering all this music, we’re also trying to create a soundtrack that captures the essence of Brazil’s atmosphere by the sea, which doesn’t mean it only makes sense in that setting.

“It’s a bit of a word play to dub it ‘The Sunny Side of Brazil’s Underground Pop,’ but we mean it: All these songs are hidden gems that had potential of being, if not major, at least minor hits, and get some airplay in the radio back then, which didn’t happen in most of the cases. This music never made it and was thrown into darkness. Since then, it’s been largely ignored by fans and collectors of Brazilian music who usually look for psychedelia, funk, soul, boogie, and samba-rock, because digging in this realm can get really sticky, cheesy. Yes, it can get cheesy, but even the bad moments are worthy to us—we are adepts of the “aesthetics of error”; it’s what makes us human. Still, the majority of the music here shines bright, so you better put your sunglasses and ride this wave.”

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