NAÇÃO ZUMBI - PROPAGANDO DVD-CLICK INSIDE 2 PREVIEW

Original invertors of the “Mangue beat”, a mixture of Brazil’s north eastern rhythms such as Maracatu & baião mixed with western hard rock.

Release
It is almost all dark. The crowd in the hall has already been making a noise. A poster raised in the audience: “Chico Science is proud.” The few lights on the stage reveal its background – old buildings along the margin of Capibaribe river, all with giant loudspeakers on top, as if Recife were a giant sound system. “A sonic condominium,” Pupillo defined, “where we’re the good sound janitors.” Perfect metaphor. Within an instant DirecTV Music Hall’s stage, in São Paulo, will look like a whole city playing together. Nação Zumbi is there just to transfigure and keep everything rolling.
Nação Zumbi’s début DVD didn’t come out early. It took ten years, but it was a strike. Just one show, no tricks, no second chance, no frills. It was a tight spot. Take a look at the trouble: fit one of the more powerful shows on earth onto a small screen. Impossible? In fact, it is. No 5.1, no subwoofer gives more goosebumps than Nação Zumbi’s backing drums’ explosion. Nonetheless, they know it very well. That is why the circus was big: 23 cameras, scenery made to perfection and 48 mixing channels. All to make up for the small screen and deliver what nobody sees live. Microcamera on Jorge Du Peixe, close on Pupillo shredding beats and Lúcio Maia’s nervous fingers. Nação seen from all sides. Lights and distorted images on the best experience of mangrove psychedelia. Some takes are readymade videos. “Meu Maracatu Pesa uma Tonelada” is an example: all shaking, as if the camera were in a convulsion state, it makes the the eyes meet the physical sensation of Nação Zumbi live – everything involuntarily moving. There are so many other examples that it would be unfair to name one over the others. Seventeen tracks (21 songs altogether) – a set list which prove what few people doubt: Nação Zumbi is the most intense and influent band in Brazil.
Much more can be watched in the extras. There is a documentary about Nação Zumbi European tour: the band between the glamour and the complicated rushing around airports, hotels and festivals. Kebab for lunch in Paris; drumming under the Triumph Arch; Jorge Du Peixe explaining to a French journalist that there isn’t a sitar in his maracatu; playing at dominos with Otto in the tunnel along the English Channel; and all those crazy people hopping in front of stage without understanding what sound that was. There a walk around Peixinhos, an Olinda poor suburb where Nação Zumbi’s drums and percussion were born. There is the making of the DVD showing the set, untangling the recordings and capturing the band confidently on and off stage. There is a remarkable video of “Macô” (hello, MTV!) entirely recorded from Lúcio Maia’s guitar arm – simple and hallucinatory. Apart from all that, there are three videos previously made: “Propaganda”, “Blunt of Judah” and “Quando a Maré Encher.”
All in all, there are two and a half hours of Nação Zumbi, but it seems less. Jorge has said that the DVD would “dissect Nação Zumbi.” Oh no, it hasn’t, Du Peixe. The show is there in great style. The tour is exhibited there. However, dissecting that band is impossible. How would you dissect the sound which has brought much more life into Recife it has been reverberating for ten years nonstop? How would you explain seven men who raise a nation wherever they roam? How would you fit into a DVD the centennial drums’ positive and exasperated feeling which takes music to the future? What there is in the DVD is the group’s unpretensiousness during all moments, the truth underneath them – the greatest principles. What matters in this disc is what its title makes explicit: propagation. It’s the ghost in the machine. Spread the power, brother. Power is what is worth now and it overflows when all seven step onstage. Everything trembles, the air turns into smoke and any healthy timpanum hears the message: heads up, guys! We shall walk ahead!