The British label Mr Bongo launched its Mr Bongo Record Club compilation series in 2016, built around finds selected by hand. For the individual instalments, the label takes its time when needed, so more than a year can sometimes pass before the next number appears. Now Mr Bongo Record Club Vol. 8 has arrived, and since Brazilian music is one of the label’s focal points, it opens prominently with just that.
»Maré Mansa« by As Ganhadeiras de Itapuã is a piece of music that is only inadequately described as a »song«. It uses its six and a half minutes for a very gradual build, beginning with a melody carried by women’s voices, whose almost stoic melancholy is so casually shot through with unexpected syncopations that one only really senses the complexity of the whole when the percussion enters halfway through. The wish to hear more of this immediately is granted by the label at once with Ubuntu’s »O Vento«, in which the singing of As Ganhadeiras de Itapuã enriches what is this time a fairly straight beat.
From there, the journey goes almost once around the globe, and from the present back to the 60s and back again. One can thus get to know the tragically short-lived female soul band The Trinikas from Oklahoma through one of their very few songs. There are also rarities in funk, jazz and dub disco from Tapper Zukie. In the words of the also featured lovers rock trio Take Three: »Can’t Get Enough.«
