Well, happy new year!

It has been a year of many musical discoveries and acquisitions for me so far. The latest has been Ed Motta’s incredible archived radio show, available at his official site. I don’t know much about Motta’s music, and I’m not completely sure it’s my thing. But this guy’s taste is INCREDIBLE! Well, to me it is, anyway, since he likes a lot of the same stuff as I do. To date, there are 108 archived radio shows, each between 20 and 30 minutes long. Ed describes the music (pretty much all of which is culled from vinyl) in an enthusiastic Brazilian Portuguese baritone. Each show is themed, and I was astonished at how many of my favorite topics were covered (for example, scat vocals, Italian film composers, as well as a huge quantity of soul and Brazilian vocal/jazz groups). A high quality stream is available (windows media format). I’ve only listened to three shows so far, but they were both excellent. Obviously it’s mainly for the music that I listen, but I have to confess to being entertained by Ed saying ‘Novi Singers’ and ‘Ennio Morricone’ in the middle of sentences spoken in Brazilian Portuguese. Anyway, I’m sure these archived shows will be a source of many new discoveries for me; I will probably have to go back to Brazil to find the records though. What a shame!

I have pretty much restricted my record consumption to a) things I already own; b) downloads; c) charity/thrift shop vinyl purchases and d) the occasional special item that I can’t resist. The most recent ‘special’ item was this. Yes, Astrud Gilberto actually recorded an album sung in Japanese (and recorded in Japan) in 1969. How this had escaped my attention before, I don’t know, but I am very grateful to my pal eftimihn for pointing this out to me. Anyway, it has recently come out on CD in Japan, and a copy is on its way to me as I type.