Juçara Marçal

★★★★

Delta Estácio Blues QTV SELO/MAIS UM. DL/LP

Postmodern samba blues from two thirds of Metá Metá.

Created piecemeal during the last four years, Juçara Marçal’s latest solo album is a complex hybrid, blending hip-hop production techniques with maracatu, axé and candomblé, as well as dystopian postpunk. Created with fellow Metá Metá comrade Kiko Dinucci as co-producer, the album took Danny Brown’s

Atrocity Exhibition as a template, each embryonic song beginning with a disjointed rhythm then fielded out to prominent collaborators such as Rodrigo Campos, Siba and Tulipa for further composition. The result is a series of musical shocks driven by Marçal’s powerful vocals: lead single Crash is a semirapped warrior’s cry that references the graphic exploits of Kill Bill and Kung Fu; Sem Cais attacks climate change and the broader pollution of industry and political corruption; and the title track sees Robert Johnson learning his craft in Rio with samba pioneers instead of the Devil.