Although not widely regarded as such, Bad Trip Simulator #1 is a crucial moment on Brazilian
music.This is the point where Satanique Samba Trio goes full bezerk on Brazilian music's cliches,
a project a few researchers suspect they had been developing since day one. Here, in a flagrant
intent of aesthetical deconstruction, they mock and twist a great number of commonplace artifices
Samba Music is known for. Trained ears will probably understand the message as soon as the
percussion intro on "Banzo Bonanza" (track number 1) hits the speakers: a traditional drum roll
called "rufo-de-repinique", commonly used in the end of most samba-de-partido-alto songs goes head
first into the CD. From then on, one can perceive cavaco riffs being stretched into oblivion, time
signatures that weren't-supposed-to-be and the constant deformation of concepts indigenous to
Samba Music and its variations (i.e. samba tradicional, samba de terreiro, samba de enredo, bossa-
nova, etc). Their research on both mapping and deconstructing Brazilian music would become even
more evident in their next album, Bad Trip Simulator #3, one of my favorites ever. |
