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Demos (1973​-​75) Volumes 1&2

by Azymuth

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    This is a pre-order which will ship from 3rd March 2023

    Tracklist:
    Volume 1
    A1. Prefacio
    A2. Castelo (Version 1)
    A3. Melô Da Cuica
    A4. Xingó (version 1)
    B1. Laranjeiras
    B2. Equipe 68
    B3. Unknown Jam
    B4. Unknown Song For Mario Telles
    Volume 2
    A1. Duro De Roer
    A2. Manhã
    A3. Tempos Do Paraná
    A4. Bateria Do Mamão
    B1. Quem Tem Medo
    B2. Xingó (version 2)
    B3. Juntos Mais Uma Vez
    B4. Castelo (version 2)

    Includes unlimited streaming of Demos (1973-75) Volumes 1&2 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £36 GBP or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    This is a pre-order that will ship from 3rd March 2023

    Tracklist:

    A1. Prefacio
    A2. Castelo (Version 1)
    A3. Melô Da Cuica
    A4. Xingo (version 1)
    B1. Laranjeiras
    B2. Equipe 68
    B3. Unknown Jam
    B4. Unknown Song For Mario Telles

    Includes unlimited streaming of Demos (1973-75) Volumes 1&2 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £20 GBP or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    This is a pre-order that will ship from 3rd March 2023

    Tracklist:

    A1. Duro De Roer
    A2. Manhã
    A3. Tempos Do Paraná
    A4. Bateria Do Mamão
    B1. Quem Tem Medo
    B2. Xingó (version 2)
    B3. Juntos Mais Uma Vez
    B4. Castelo (version 2)

    Includes unlimited streaming of Demos (1973-75) Volumes 1&2 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £20 GBP or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Demos (1973-75) Volumes 1&2 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £12 GBP or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £10 GBP  or more

     

  • T-Shirt/Apparel

    Limited T-Shirt celebrating the release of Azymuth's previously unheard 'Demos 1973-75'.

    Gildan Softstyle t-shirts. Made from 100% soft style yarn cotton.
    ships out within 5 days
    2 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      £21 GBP or more 

     

  • Test Pressing (Volume 1)
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited edition of 5. Housed in a generic sleeve.

    (Please note that the printed album title pictured does not appear on the finished copy) 

    Includes unlimited streaming of Demos (1973-75) Volumes 1&2 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Test Pressing (Volume 2)
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited edition of 5. Housed in a generic sleeve.

    (Please note that the printed album title pictured does not appear on the finished copy) 

    Includes unlimited streaming of Demos (1973-75) Volumes 1&2 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Cassette
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Limited cassette tape in a gloss slipcase, includes full 16-track release. Only 150 hand-numbered copies available!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Demos (1973-75) Volumes 1&2 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Azymuth Illustration T-Shirt
    T-Shirt/Shirt

    Introducing the Far Out Masters series!

    Far Out Recordings launches an exclusive, limited-edition series of T-shirts featuring some of the label's most iconic music makers, in collaboration with São Paulo based artist Talita Hoffman

    Printed on 100% cotton T-shirts

    Fits true to size

    Sold Out

1.
Prefacio 04:20
2.
3.
4.
5.
Laranjeiras 07:35
6.
Equipe 68 05:43
7.
Unknown Jam 01:54
8.
9.
Duro de Roer 04:10
10.
Manha 07:04
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

about

Since their debut album release in 1975, Azymuth have risen to rank alongside the world’s greatest jazz, funk and fusion artists. As young men in Rio de Janeiro, they stood out for both their exceptional talent as musicians, and their wild rock‘n’roll antics in the predominantly middle-class worlds of bossa nova and jazz. Their signature “Samba Doido” (crazy samba) sound ruptured the tried and tested musical structures of the day, resulting in what can only be described as an electric, psychedelic, samba jazz-funk hybrid.

Before they became Azymuth, Jose Roberto Bertrami (keyboards), Ivan ‘Mamão’ Conti (drums), Alex Malheiros (bass) and Ariovaldo Contesini (percussion) played backing band to just about every major artist in Brazil. Bertrami was also contracted as an arranger and songwriter at the biggest labels of the era: Polydor, Philips, Som Livre, and EMI being just a few. Azymuth’s name can be found on record sleeves by the likes of Jorge Ben, Elis Regina, Marcos Valle, Ana Mazzotti and countless others. But at the dawn of the seventies, fascinated by developments in improvisational music - from jazz in the US, to progressive rock in the UK and of course samba, bossa and tropicália on home turf - the energetic young group were inspired and ready to move forward. Any spare moment in which they weren’t in sessions and writing music for other artists, they would be carving out their own sound.

These previously unheard recordings took place between 1973-75 at Bertrami’s home studio in the Laranjeiras district of Rio de Janeiro. At the time of recording, there was nothing in Brazil, less the world that sounded anything like them, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that when Bertrami presented his demos to the record companies he had been working for, he was turned away, and told in effect that the music was ‘wrong’.

One of the demos ‘Manhã’ would be picked up by Som Livre and Azymuth released their seminal debut album in 1975. Throughout the late seventies and eighties the group released a series of now classic albums for Milestone Records, before taking an indefinite hiatus to pursue their individual careers.

When English producers Joe Davis and Roc Hunter arrived in Brazil in 1994 to record the first Azymuth album in over a decade, Bertrami dug out the demos which had sat virtually untouched for over twenty years. Joe recalls how he was “blown away by the freedom and intensity of the music, as well as the genius of the ideas musically.” Beginning a long and fruitful relationship, ‘Prefacio’ would be the first track Azymuth recorded for Far Out Recordings and was released on the Carnival album (1996).

Including ‘Manhã’ and ‘Prefacio’, only a handful of these demo tracks were ever professionally recorded and released, making this the first opportunity to hear many of these early Azymuth compositions in their raw, original form.

On every track the frenetic energy in the studio is palpable, giving the recordings a beautifully personal feel and a sense of the phenomenally creative vision Bertrami, Malheiros and Conti were realising at the time. Fifty years on, Azymuth’s earliest recorded music retains an ineffable, futuristic quality, standing amongst their most captivating and moving work.

credits

released May 31, 2019

Produced by Azymuth and Jose Roberto Bertrami
Recorded at Jose Roberto Bertrami’s home studio in Laranjeiras, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil between 1973 – 1975.
Issue and project co-ordinator: Joe Davis
Tape transfers by Roc Hunter (thanks to Simon Hitner)
Mastered by Daniel Maunick at the Sugar Shack, Lanark, Scotland
Mastered by Frank at Carvery Cuts
All tracks published by Far Out Music Publishing / Westbury Music LTD

These are demo recordings and were not recorded in a professional studio, therefore the sound may differ from other releases by Azymuth. The best care has been taken in the restoration and mastering of this release.

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