IVAN ‘MAMÃO’ CONTI – POISON FRUIT [FAR OUT RECORDINGS]

Morning Mari*‘s album of the week for 4-8 March is Ivan ‘Mamão’ Conti‘s ‘Passion Fruit‘ out on Far Out Recordings.

From an artist in their seventies, you probably wouldn’t expect to hear an album like this. But Brazilian drumming legend Ivan ‘Mamão’ Conti has been experimenting and innovating for the last half a century. As one third of cult 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 guarda group The Youngsters, Mamão was experimenting with tapes and delays to create unique, ahead-of-its-time sounds, way back in the sixties. More recently Mamão recorded an album with hip-hop royalty Madlib under the shared moniker ‘Jackson Conti’.

With his first album in over twenty years, and the first to be released on vinyl since his 1984 classic The Human Factor, Mamão shares his zany carioca character across eleven 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.

Take a bite of Mamão’s psychoactive Papaya and join the maestro on a weird and wonderful stroll through the Brazilian jungle.

United by a love for the music of Mamão and Azymuth, the CD and digital edition also feature remixes and dubs from some of today’s most forward-thinking producers with a penchant for percussion, including IG Culture, the 22a crew, Max Graef and Glenn Astro.

Tracklist
A1. Aroeira
A2. Bacurau
A3. Poison Fruit
A4. Jemburi
B1. Encontro
B2. Que Legal
B3. Ecos Da Mata
B4. Tempestades
B5. Ilha Da Luz

Produced by Daniel Maunick
Co-produced by Ivan Conti
Executive producer: Joe Davis
Recorded at Castelo Studios in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by Daniel Maunick & Carlos Machado & at Estudio Do Mamao, Jacone, Brazil, by
Ivan Conti & Daniel Maunick
Mixed by Daniel Maunick at The Sugar Shack, Lanark,
Scotland
Mastered by Pete Norman at Finyl Tweek
Artwork by Noopur Choksi
All tracks published by Far Out Music Publishing / Westbury
Music ltd.