Seu Jorge and Almaz

iTunes Review

Though he started playing music in 1996 with Farofa Carioca, it was his acoustic versions of David Bowie songs (sung in Portuguese) for the soundtrack to Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou that gave Seu Jorge some statewide attention in 2004. Here the Brazilian bard reinvents himself with Almaz, arguably the best band to support Jorge. With Nação Zumbi’s Lucio Maia on guitar, Brazilian film score composer Antonio Pinto on bass and Puppilo on drums, Almaz is a trio that puts tinges of psychedelia into mellow South American grooves. While Jorge retains his penchant for turning the songs of others into his own creations, the vibe here is loose and atmospheric, blending Tropicália with indie rock and spaced out jazz-funk — the latter dominating a more aggressive rendition of Tim Maia’s “Cristina” with dub-delay on the guitar and a taut, elastic bass line. They turn Kraftwerk’s “The Model” into a pulsing, reverberating, dance- floor jam, and although Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” suffers from a karaoke approach, their clouded take on Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” is fully redeeming.