Various

Much is made of this collection being the first bossa remix project to be produced in Brazil, but while pop, rock and dance artists have been flocking to the easy, languid sounds of bossa nova and tropicalia in recent years, I don’t know of that many remix projects to compare this one to. So, yes, it’s quite fine taken on its own merits. Taking an approach similar to the current vogue of electronica producers inviting other producers into the studio to either rework their own recordings or to collaborate on new one, producers Marcelo Dalua, Alenxandre Moreira and Marcio Menescal host a squad of Brazilian pop masters past and present, layering beats, samples and a North-of-Cuba club aesthetic over the big bossa grooves. And it says a lot about how little they tamper with the original form — and how utterly contemporary bossa nova sounds — that you’d hardly know this was a remix project and not just a slightly funkier fringe of tropicalia.