An artist in his seventies, Brazilian drummer Ivan ‘Mamão’ Conti has been experimenting and possibly innovating for the last half a century. As one third of Rio jazz-funk trio Azymuth, Mamão was at the root of the group’s ‘samba doido’ (crazy samba) philosophy, which warped the traditional samba compass with jazz influences and space age electronics.
Even with his lesser known jovem guardua group The Youngsters, Mamão was experimenting with tapes and delays to create unique, possibly ahead-of-its-time sounds, way back in the sixties. More recently Mamão recorded an album with hip-hop artist Madlib under the shared moniker ‘Jackson Conti’.
With his first album in over 20 years, and the first to be released on vinyl since 1984’s ‘The Human Factor’, Mamão shares his zany carioca character across 11 tracks of rootsy electronic samba and tripped out jazz, beats and dance music.
Featuring Alex Malheiros and Kiko Continentino on a number of tracks, the Azymuth lifeblood runs deep, but venturing into the modern discotheque (as Mamão would call it), Poison Fruit also experiments with sounds more commonly associated with house and techno, with the help of London-based producer Daniel Maunick (aka Dokta Venom) and Mamão's son Thiago Maranhão.
United by a love for the music of Mamão and Azymuth, the CD and digital edition also feature the previously released remixes and dubs from producers with a penchant for percussion, including IG Culture, the 22a crew, Max Graef and Glenn Astro.
It’s out 25 January on Far Out Recordings, check it out below.
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