Nova Bossa Nova

Marking sixty years of Bossa Nova, and twenty years since Marcos Valle's first release for Far Out Recordings, what better time to bring back this era-defining classic from the Brazilian master composer Throughout his astounding six-decade career, infiltrating pop, bossa nova, samba, delicate psychedelia, jazz and funk, Marcos Valle has consistently shown a dogged determination to transcend the traditions and structures of bossa nova, whilst never veering away from the movement's inherent, fundamental spirit. To some extent, his epithet 'the original Rio beach boy' is a handy one: it reflects the origin and character of his often sun-soaked sound, but expounding his importance in the lineage of Brazilian music, he is more discerningly known as 'the renaissance man of Brazilian pop'. He is indeed one the very greatest and most important composers, arrangers, writers and performers in Brazil. Up until Nova Bossa Nova, Marcos Valle hadn't released an album for well over a decade. After 1983, he resented the way the music industry had changed with commercialisation and new demands curtailing his creative freedom. This was until 1994 when Marcos met Far Out boss Joe Davis and they recorded a track for Far Out's first Friends From Rio album. This new collaborative partnership resulted in a new solo album, which commenced recording in 1996. Nova Bossa Nova brought Marcos bouncing back into the 90s, slotting nicely in place alongside the acid jazz movement as well as a voracious new demand for Brazilian music on dancefloors from London to Tokyo. It was witnessing the London club scene's growing appetite for Brazilian music, as well as a lack of new sounds coming out of Brazil at the time, that a young Joe Davis put in a proposal to record a new album with one of his musical idols. Joe wanted to facilitate an album which would combine the latest technologies and production techniques, with live to analogue tape recording: a Marcos Valle album tailor-made for London's clubs