Super review by Cal Gibson, of The Secret Soul Society.

Like no doubt many of you, I’ve spent most of this week yet again despairing as some people decide that actually the best way to live is to kill other people. I know it appears to be part and parcel of humanity but it’s a crock of shit: always has been, always will be. If humanity somehow manages to cling on for a few more centuries, maybe then we’ll realise that murder and mayhem are never the answer, that peace and love are the only things worth living for, that somehow we have to find ways to all live together on this beautiful planet of ours. I won’t be holding my breath, sadly.

This means that, as ever, I’ve been looking to art to provide an escape. Much like Rob digging into Cormac McCarthy, I’ve been swept away by Deborah Levy‘s utterly brilliant living autobiography, The Cost of Living, and while mulling over her superb analysis of modern life, I’ve been equally enthused by Sao Paulo’s finest, Bixiga 70, and their funk-filled new album Vapor.

It’s a collection of zingers, jazzual rock and rollers, carved out of granite and seasoned with soul. Horns and drums up high in the mix. Players bouncing off each other with joyous riffs and chunky themes. It’s music to move to, to immerse yourself in, and forget the horror that’s served up by the hatemongers. It’s a soothing balm for troubled souls.

All seven cuts hit home with highlights including the lurid late night tales of Na Quarta-Feira, with the lead high synth lines wandering in with a smile and a kiss and a devil may care attitude. Heavy on the funk, light in touch. It’s robust and warming, windswept and worthy: guitars set to stun and the percussion poured on with a steady hand. Cosmically-inclined, large and dangerous.

Mar Viardo is just as good: a ready-rolled pot-pourri of jazz and rock, and tricksy manoeuvres, sweetened with bumping bass and laced with expert musicianship. Friends and family facing off, low end theory revitalized for the favela. Muscular and forceful and full to the brim with joie de vivre. Widening out into a widescreen wig-flipper, a full-on blaze up, horns maxed out and swinging for dear life.

Baile Flutuante wraps itself around similar thematic territory – all sideways glances and studied nonchalance. The big city unwinding into the tropical night: glasses clinking, plans being hatched, life being lived precariously, as always. A hint of post-punk vitality in amongst the madness. Synths sent tumbling through alleyways of regret, guitars shredding right at the top of the neck. Divine comedy.

Loa Lua sends us off smiling, eased-back and chock full of swollen horn parts. Happy in the knowledge that somehow, somewhere humans are at play – creating and crafting and expressing the joy in life that so often gets smothered by all the damned hatred.

So thank you Deborah Levy and thank you Bixiga 70, and thank you everyone holding on to the slim hope that a better world is still possible. I won’t see it but maybe, just maybe, my daughter, and then her daughter, and her daughter after that, might one day come up with the answer. Keep on believing amigos, keep on believing.

Bixiga 70’s Vapor is out now on Glitterbeat. 

Deborah Levy’s Cost Of Living is published by Penguin.