Candomblé: Sacred Rhythms in Brazil review | Ammar Kalia's global album of the month

(Flee)
A treasure trove of field recordings are reshaped into pulsating floor-fillers and sparse baile funk by a range of producers

The Brazilian religious and musical tradition of candomblé is a rhythmic barrage. Originating in the 19th century among enslaved west Africans, candomblé manifested in music as a ritual practice of drumming circles, where polyrhythms were hammered out to induce possession by spirits. Athens-based archival label Flee presents a treasure trove of this ceremonial music from a community in Salvador in the late 1980s, alongside a series of ingenious remixes made by contemporary artists.

Side one of the album hosts the field recordings. Hazy, unbalanced and full of tape hiss, the 10 ritual compositions pull listeners into the frenetic environment in which they were recorded. It is as if we are sitting next to the tape recorder witnessing the overlapping, joyous voices glimpsed in the distance on Ossaim or the singular male voice that wails movingly before disappearing on Xangô. The experience can feel frustratingly fragmented, but if melody is fleeting, the drumming is not. Clattering, clave-style hits produce infectious movement on Ogum, while bells and a mid-tempo swing create the feel of undulating waves on Entrada dos Orixás.
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