B-Side of Life

 Magical covers by The Space Lady with the right infusion of folk and spacey mood. The Space Lady is a beautiful soul that manages to create simple yet immersive melodies on her casio keyboard.  It takes to another dimension, a comfy one. 

  Soft and delicate acoustic guitar tapestries by musician Don Bikoff that manages to create some really magical moments. In the vein of musicians like John Fahey and Sandy Bull, this american primitivism is woven with some really solid and beautiful folk.   

  Lo¬fi and raw garage.punk from Japan. Filled with teenage angst and rebellion, it grabs you by the throat and won t let you go. Teengenerate has a couple of recordings and 2 major lenght albums, since they were only active between 1993¬1995. This is their debut and it is filled with short, hellish fast and noisy songs. As sincere as it can be. 

  Solid compilation of punk and new wave songs from bands like The Ramones, The Pretenders, Feelies, Madness and a couple others. An 80s edition released in Portugal, double vynil of red and green colors. 

  Four songs sung by Maria de Fátima Bravo for the classic portuguese film "O Tarzan do 5º esquerdo" released in 1958 and directed by Augusto Fraga. The movie is an early incarnation of a romantic comedy and is quite playful and entertaining. The songs here also symphonic goodies led by the charismatic voice of Maria de Fátima and the lyrics tend to be as bittersweet as the movie itself. The music was composed by João Nobre, the main composer for this feature lenght film.  The cover is also delightful, featuring the singer herself sat by a record player and we can notice that some of the records are french, which makes sense given the popularity of chanson at that particular time. 

  Indie pop by Tiago Guillul. Recorded in a studio and with guests like Rui Reininho, Tiago Guillul moves from his lo-fi days to a well produced and clean cut album. "A Febre em 1993" is a really adorable and catchy song that is one of the highlights of this album, using dancing and funky samples with some playful arrangements. "Nabucodonosor" named after one of the kings in the bible, is a really jangley song with collaborations from Rui Reininho in the vocals. Released by Florcaveira, this album has some religious inspired lyrics and most songs were built upon evangelical songs from all over the world, but that isn't exactly a surprise since it's Tiago Guillul. Overall, a candy bomb of an album of enjoyable and clever indie pop. 

  A compilation of songs by Aparecida. My first foray into candomblé and afoxé music with a strong base of samba, so I was really impressed with the rhytms and the powerful voice of Aparecida. This peculiar rhythm is called ijexá and was invented by the yoruba people, originating in the states of Pernanbumco and Bahia. The lyrics are deeply religious or spiritual based on candomblé religion. First time listener and a bit of a fan already.