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    Brazilian music on Fridays: ‘City of Samba’

    Thanks to fellow Brazilian logician Valeria de Paiva, I cam across this amazing video, ‘City of Samba’, created by the multimedia artists Jarbas Agnelli and Keith Loutit. The city of samba is, of course, Rio de Janeiro, a city that is perennially beautiful no matter how you look at it; but through the tilt shift lenses of the artists, it becomes frankly supernatural. The music is also specially composed by Jarbas Agnelli, using non-percussion instruments to recreate the magical drumming of a samba school. (Here is a video where he explains the creative process.)

    Many of you may by now be a bit fed-up with the World Cup-induced Brazil frenzy, but I assure you that this video will blow your mind even if you are suffering from Brazil-fatigue.


     

     

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    2 responses to “Brazilian music on Fridays: ‘City of Samba’”

    1. James Camien McGuiggan Avatar
      James Camien McGuiggan

      I like the tilt-shift stuff, but I am shocked and appalled at the extent to which the music – especially the daytime music – rips off Philip Glass. I didn’t think one could pass a composition degree writing this derivatively. The might music is not particularly Glassian, but I find the cello and doublebass give the music this dark ominous quality I can’t imagine is intended. It has none of the exuberance of samba, I find; but I don’t know samba, and maybe I’m missing the point here.

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    2. Catarina Dutilh Novaes Avatar
      Catarina Dutilh Novaes

      I agree, in fact at first I was sure it was not an original composition! But I still think the video-music combination works quite well. I actually like the ‘dark ominous quality’, as you describe it, precisely because it goes against what one would expect of samba.

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