Tag Archives: Lucas Santtana

Sound of the Underground: Lucas Santtana

Sound of the Underground preview written for Lucas Santtana’s show in Sao Paulo. Printed in Time Out Sao Paulo November 2011.

Sound of the Underground
Lucas Santtana

If there’s one person that represents the “melting pot” culture of Brazilian music it’s Lucas Santtana – each of his four albums has focused on a different musical style, starting with a mix of African grooves and Brazilian percussion on his debut, before moving onto the electronic-based beats of Rio’s favelas and later dub music. His most recent album Sem Nostalgia was constructed just using guitar and vocals, yet sounded like the free-flowing electronica of Four Tet or Thom Yorke. It’s an album that has earnt him much praise in both the UK and USA, where he is applauded for both his ability to write a great melody and the sonic explorations that his albums normally involve.

Live, Santtana sticks to his more up-tempo numbers, mixing relentless rhythms with infectious melodies and a sound that is clearly influenced by African, Jamaican and international pop music yet still sounds quintessentially Brazilian.

A Glut of Articles on Lucas Santtana

First off, if you’ve not heard Sem Nostalgia yet by Lucas Santtana then you need to pull yourself together. Get a taster via this clip on Youtube. The album was released in Brazil in 2009 and finally made it’s way to the UK via Mais Um Discos on August 29th, the same record label that put out the superb Oi! A Nova Musica Brasileira! last year. Well, it turns out I got a bit excited about it’s release and wrote quite a few articles about the album as well as interviewing Lucas himself! Continue reading A Glut of Articles on Lucas Santtana

The Wire MP3 Special

I wrote an article on the underground scene in Sao Paulo for the May edition of The Wire, an English magazine subtitled Adventures In Modern Music. To accompany the article they asked me to get a few tracks together for their website.  I managed to get songs together from Metá-Metá, Bodes e Elefantes, Lucas Santtana, Lulina, Criolo and Rodrigo Brandao for this. You can listen to these songs at The Wire’s website here:

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/6467/