radio free gak #16 - "When twilight dims the sky above"

No other remedy for a day full of Scotch mist than my first full-length theme episode: South America. Most of this show involved Brazil, both modern and old, involving acts like Bonde do Rôle and Cansei de Ser Sexy, which was fortuitous timing on my part since they posted their latest single on their website earlier today, which I planned for by leaving a little gap in the show to plug it in once it became available.

From there, there was plenty of hopping around both time and space, mixing the sixties' sounds of bossa nova with the aural haze of the seventies soft pop, the post-punk of the eighties with this decade's baile funk. I tried keeping it mostly Brazilian, though the Peruvian bugalu heard on Vampisoul's ¡Gózalo!: Bugalú Tropical Volume 2 could not be skipped after a recent record store binge.

The end of the show featured music from City of God, a fantastic movie that I utterly recommend to watch and I need to go see the sequel/spin-off City of Men. It looked like I was going to run into overtime, hence the need for me to talk over the heavy dance track before the supple sounds of Onda.

I had glorious help with the Portuguese pronunciations from a co-worker, though I definitely mangled a few when I wasn't paying attention to my notes. The Spanish bits were definitely easier to pronounce, though that's only because I knew about the certain tricks like the double L's sounding like Y's. The Portuguese M/N blur toward "ng" vexed me greatly and I drifted toward my usual Finnish fallback, though a mix of French finesse and Polish curviness made me sound somewhat less loopy.

No concert listings this week, I'm afraid; go to Quinn's blog if you need to figure out shows are upcoming. (If you have Cut Copy tickets, do want!) I also scaled back on my Canadiana, so expect next week's show to beat the northern drum a bit more.

Playlist follows: