Waldir Calmo: Airport Love Theme / Afro Som (Madvillain) Vinyl 7″ Waldir Calmo

“You know it’s going to be a heavy record when DJ / collector Mr Thing asks you to keep a look out for a copy on your next digging trip to Brazil. Add on top of that, being sampled by Madlib on the track ‘Curls’ on his Madvillain album, and you know you’ve got something extra special. Taken from Waldir Calmon’s Waldir Calmon E Seus Multisons album on Copacabana (1970), from looking at this unassuming record cover featuring a middle-aged man sporting an impressive pair of glasses you wouldn’t expect it to become the fabric to one of the songs from the iconic Madvillain album. But… like many things in life, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. ‘Airport Love Theme’, like its name suggests, falls into full-on lounge territory. It’s feel-good music made to be the soundtrack for a utopian world that never really was. Yet behind the silky smooth groove is an addictive earworm waiting to be heard. ‘Afro Son’ taken from the same album, pushes things in a different direction towards a sound that is more firmly rooted in the Brazilian tradition. This quirky 60’s-breakbeat-funk groove is reminiscent of French artist Jean Jacques Perrey’s ‘E.V.A.’, also from 1970, in its melody and backbeat, where the Moog synthesizer of Perrey is replaced with a more orchestrated sound by Calmon. This track is magical, cinematic and breakbeat-laden with a hidden unknown exoticism.” – Mr Bongo

• 1970 Brazilian jazz-funk sampled by Madvillain
• black 7″ vinyl pressing
• first time on vinyl in more than 35 years
• music label: Mr Bongo 2021