Search - Marcos Valle :: Vento Sul

Hippie Bossa-Rock Groove

Greg C | NY | 10/13/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Marcos Valle's followup to the splendid and definitive "Garra" avoids attempting to replicate the magic of that album, instead opting for an entirely new direction full of the lets-grow-our-hair-eat-granola-and-live-off-the-land hippie philosophy so prevalent at the time. To achieve this, Valle recruited a young rock group named O Terço, whose drummer Vinicius Cantuaria would subsequently make a name for himself in Caetano Veloso's band and more recently as an acclaimed solo artist. About half of this album consists of Valle's usual irresistible catchiness, and the rest sounds like somebody's been listening to a lot of Pink Floyd and smoking a lot of pot. It's utterly fascinating overall, only rarely lapsing into tediousness and/or self-indulgence, which were common currency in post-hippie music circa 1972. At least he doesn't give in to the temptation to stretch any of these songs to 20 minutes! But, as with any of Valle's work from this era, it's totally worth checking out, and songs like "Malena," "Pista 02" and the awesome bonus track "O Beato" make this worthwhile, although maybe not the one you'd want to get first."