Country : Brazil Label : Rebel Up! Genres and styles : Experimental / Contemporary / Forró / Synthwave Year : 2020

Forrível

· by Rupert Bottenberg

Brazil’s Satanique Samba Trio have been dragging various local folk-music styles into their creepy tool shed, and doing unspeakable things to them, for about 10 years now. In honour of the make-believe menace and morbidity of Halloween (Dia das Bruxas, or Witches’ Day, in Brazil), they’ve manufactured a two-headed monster. They’ve dressed up forró, a cheerful, proletarian party music from the country’s northeastern farmlands, in the trappings of the Italian electro-horror sound of the 1970s, the creepy synth-rock that accompanied a putrid parade of zombie movies and lurid giallo thrillers.

It’s hard to tell through the haze of xiboquinha, the sugarcane liquor that’s regarded to be the official drink of the forró scene, but this monster’s two heads might be arguing at cross-purposes, or exchanging lascivious come-ons. Either way, their outbursts are brief. Satanique Samba Trio’s pieces never last very long – the 28 tracks on Instant Karma, released earlier this year, were all 15 seconds long, and most of those on Forrível clock in at about a minute. For some tracks, that’s fine, just long enough to gawk at them like the wretched, caged mutants in some itinerant freak show.

There are however many moments here when Brasilia resident Munha da 7, bassist and producer, joined by a band that’s brought all of forró’s requisite instruments to the studio (accordion, viola caipira, zabumba drum, and of course the mighty triangle), achieve the unexpected. They reveal something musical that transcends the joking mash-up of incongruous genres, something more than the sum of the parts. The invigourating “Semi-Obsessor Dream Sequence” and “Satanai’s Theme” are good examples of this, and at less than a minute long each, far too short.

Latest 360 Content

Festival des Saveurs | Carminda Mac Lorin, The Woman of Many Hats

Festival des Saveurs | Carminda Mac Lorin, The Woman of Many Hats

SAT X EAF | Amselysen and The Ideal Perfume of A Serial Killer

SAT X EAF | Amselysen and The Ideal Perfume of A Serial Killer

Festival Classica 2025 | Women’s Cellos

Festival Classica 2025 | Women’s Cellos

Nuits d’Afrique 2025: ALL About The Program

Nuits d’Afrique 2025: ALL About The Program

Festival Classica: An Ode to Hope with Elvira Misbakhova

Festival Classica: An Ode to Hope with Elvira Misbakhova

Festival des Saveurs | Aldo Guizmo Goes “Str8 Forward”

Festival des Saveurs | Aldo Guizmo Goes “Str8 Forward”

Deafhaven – Lonely People with Power

Deafhaven – Lonely People with Power

Transforming Hiroshima mon amour into contemporary opera: Christian Lapointe and Rosa Lind tell the story

Transforming Hiroshima mon amour into contemporary opera: Christian Lapointe and Rosa Lind tell the story

Sparks – MAD!

Sparks – MAD!

“Hiroshima, mon amour”: An Evening to Remember

“Hiroshima, mon amour”: An Evening to Remember

Peter Murphy – Silver Shade

Peter Murphy – Silver Shade

Ken Pomeroy – Cruel World

Ken Pomeroy – Cruel World

Art of the Line: Klangkarussell’s Euro Vision at SAT

Art of the Line: Klangkarussell’s Euro Vision at SAT

Festival des Saveurs | Closing With Reggae

Festival des Saveurs | Closing With Reggae

Centroamérica – a powerful docu-play about truth and connection in an age of distance and denial

Centroamérica – a powerful docu-play about truth and connection in an age of distance and denial

Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Tamir Barzilay – Phosphene Journal

Tamir Barzilay – Phosphene Journal

The best ‘’Candlelight concert‘’ ever.

The best ‘’Candlelight concert‘’ ever.

Men I Trust – Equus Caballus

Men I Trust – Equus Caballus

The Halluci Nation – Path of the Baby Face

The Halluci Nation – Path of the Baby Face

A lap steel guitar choir and an angel to end the Innovations en concert 24-25 season

A lap steel guitar choir and an angel to end the Innovations en concert 24-25 season

The OSM and Abel Selaocoe: Evenings When You’d Like to Stop Time

The OSM and Abel Selaocoe: Evenings When You’d Like to Stop Time

Reaching for the sky: Francis Choinière’s challenge to end his OPCM’s 10th season

Reaching for the sky: Francis Choinière’s challenge to end his OPCM’s 10th season

Subscribe to our newsletter