Zuco 103

Zuco 103 also goes down easily with the rest of the bossa summer, but it strays further from the songwriting figures of Antonio Carlos Jobim and the lissom rhythms of Joao Gilberto into a world of samba breakbeats. They’ve been much less hyped than Bebel Gilberto and Da Lata, but Zuco 103’s is the more daring album, finding a common musical context for bossa nova-style melodies, samba rhythms and drum & bass beats. It’s true that they don’t hit a homer with every song, but where the results are less than breathtaking, it’s usually because they’re overreaching, but that inquisitive spirit pays off for more often than not.