Once Chico Dub announced the artists who would be part of the sixth volume of the Hy Brazil series via his Facebook, I figured we were gonna have the most danceable edition released so far. It even feels like it can be played on its entirety in a club, but with proper time to go to the bathroom, get some more beer, or even get on a discussion about the current politics lol.As usual, the 14 tracks chosen by the curator and producer of important festivals in Brazil shows the extreme volatility in the Brazilian electronic scene right now. This was also the second year that Chico curated the Eletronika festival, in Belo Horizonte, where he took some artists from the compilation including Zopelar and Mauro Telefunksoul, and some other ones from previous editions like Fudisterik and Seixlack. We were there and saw how Omulu set the place on fire with its blend of dance music and experimentation, and it's this feeling that corroborates throughout the album and the first track "G Pulse", by the producer Sexworker. He's from Rio de Janeiro but currently living in Cork, Ireland, and creates the feeling of an abstract and hyper-real club with strong and hybrid beats that flirt with industrial techno and grime, and it's a perfect introduction to "EDL", perhaps the most aggressive yet immersive track the producer Formafluida has ever done.Gorilla Brutality's "Starmade" brings house to the album, and could very well be made by drones doing some kind of rain dance to the beats of Maurizio or Carl Craig. It successfully represents the textures that its label Domina is trying to create with techno in Rio de Janeiro. Molar's shamanic techno is accompanied by Atari nostalgia sound of the Zopelar's music, and by the delightful and groovy "Mist", by D.Edge's club resident Márcio Vermelho. If you ever witnessed the sunrise at its famous rooftop in Barra Funda, you'll know this is the perfect track to start a new day.ótimoKarater and Hojer Yama are responsible for the more introspective part of the compilation, where ótimokarater's ambient clashes with the well of noise which is "Escama" from Yama. It's like the first one is trying to figure himself out, slowly building his own identity, while the second creates this assertive protection against anything from outside, like a skin or a scale. The delicate and multispacial Jaguah, from Tranca Rua, brings back the club mood that will follow the next tracks, such as the bubbly twerking from Pesadão Tropical and the spicy and axé-filled beats from bahia bass with Lord Breu and Mauro Telefunksoul. "É No Pagode" it's a fusion of samba and pagode with a twist of well crafted-samples from classics, followed by Uaná System's "Amazon Bitch", which ends the album with a warm feeling of a typical cold beer and a feijoada on a brazilian Sunday, but replace the beach environment for a dark basement full of lasers and artificial plants.
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Eduardo Pininga is THUMP's Editor in Brazil