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What's all the buzz about the beat?

The new CD has been getting a lot of love from the press.  We have just moved up to #12 in the CMJ World Music charts.  Please call your local radio station and request them to play our new CD.  And if they don't have it write to us and let us know so we can send your local radio station a copy of Growing Stone.

 

Growing Stone was voted one of the top 10 albums in 2011 by the Village Voice. Click here.

 

American and Brazilian musicians have been finding common ground ever since jazz artists turned to bossa nova 50 years ago. But the result has never sounded quite like this. Listen to the Banning Eyre review on NPR right here.   (August, 2008) 


 

"The resulting sound is creative and flawless, a new multi-cultural energy that sounds like it had been bottled up and ready to explode for ages. Luckily, Nation Beat has finally popped the cork on this perfect combination.....Nation Beat's cross-pollination of music is nothing short of groundbreaking." - Liz Pelly, CMJ (8/6/08) 

"The resulting sound is creative and flawless, a new multi-cultural energy that sounds like it had been bottled up and ready to explode for ages. Luckily, Nation Beat has finally popped the cork on this perfect combination.....Nation Beat's cross-pollination of music is nothing short of groundbreaking." - Liz Pelly, CMJ (8/6/08) 

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November 16, 2011

Nation Beat has been making headlines across the continent for nine years.  Check out some of the buzz: 


Philip Booth - RELIX
November 16, 2011

On paper, the musical fusion on Growing Stone comes off like a heady musicological experiment—or maybe a typical afternoon’s stroll through the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Nation Beat delivers fiddle-led stomps, alternately hailing from a hoedown in an Appalachian mountain holler, a Fais-do-do deep in cajun country, elemental blues straight out of rural Mississippi and bits of funk and swamp rock—all artfully welded to the rhythms and textures of Northern Brazil. Somehow, the collaboration between New York drummer/percussionist/producer Scott Kettner and Brazilian singer/ percussionist Liliana Araujo gels organically. The blend is often irresistible, from the heavy maracatu grooves of opener “Puxa O boi” to the call-and-response vocals and flickering guitar, fiddle, lap steel and horns of “Sebastiana.” Philip Booth

- Lucid Culture
September 29, 2011

"...With its soaring fiddles and Memphis soul guitar, the bouncy, swaying title track is a showcase for frontwoman Liliana Araujo’s laid-back but raw, down-to-earth vocals - Forro for Salu has a rustic Brazilian string band vibe with the twin fiddles of Skye Steele and David Greeley over Kettner’s rumbling, hypnotic percussion...."

Marty Lipp - Roots World
October 18, 2011

".... After decades of Brazilian musicians cannibalizing foreign genres – from rock to reggae – and making them their own, Kettner and company return the imitative flattery and create a fresh, vibrant hybrid that plants a foot in two disparate cultures and still dances up a storm...."

- NewCity Music
October 18, 2011

".....On the new record by Nation Beat, a Brazilian-inspired band led by Brooklyn-based percussionist Scott Kettner, the group goes beyond its Maracatu roots to explore more sounds from Northeastern Brazil—principally forro (pronounced Fo-HO), a syncopated beat that is highly popular in the region, especially in the state of Ceara, where vocalist Liliana Araujo hails from......."

- Sound and Colours
September 13, 2011

Nation Beat are a due based in the US who combine maracatu (and other rhythms from northeast Brazil) with styles from America’s deep south; cajun music, zydeco, country. It may sound like an incongruous mix, but it works. Part of the reason for this must go to Scott Kettner, an experienced percussionist and leader of the group. 

- Afropop Worldwide PodCast Review
September 15, 2011

..."They're the first American group to record in Brazil with the legendary Mestre Walter & Maracatu Nação Estrela Brilhante - and the first Brazilian band to perform with Willie Nelson who called Nation Beat "just a fantastic group".

Click here to stream the 10 minute preview of Growing Stone.

John Barrett - Stereo Subversion
September 21, 2011
......"Unlike most groups who combine disparate influences, Nation Beat’s music is free of any modern filter. In terms of melody and harmony the songs are firmly rooted in tradition, which makes Growing Stone sound like an organic artifact beamed from the past. Yeah, electric guitar and bass are present, but then there’s the punctuations of trombone and saxophone and the prominent, jubilant fiddle — actually a Brazilian type of violin called a rabeca which carries a distinctive thin tone.".....
- Spin The Globe
August 27, 2011

Top 10 World Music Albums

Nation Beat  -  Meu Girassol  -  #1: Growing Stone

- Sound Roots
August 18, 2011

Brazilian soccer may be on the wane a bit in the past few years, down to a lowly world ranking of number four after nearly a decade at or near number one. However music -- Brazil's other big cultural export -- shows little sign of losing its edge. Artists including Ceu, Seu Jorge, and Forro in the Dark keep pushing tradition in new and interesting directions.

Now with their sophomore album Growing Stone, USA-Brazilian band Nation Beat prove that they deserve mention on that list as well. They dig up roots music from both cultures, blending swamp rock guitar, blues beats and Cajun and Appalachian fiddling from the north with maracatu rhythms and the ubiquitous Brazilian-style triangle. The resulting music feels amazingly natural, and will make you want to dance. 

- National Geographic - Nat Geo Music
August 10, 2011

...The Brazilian-American collective Nation Beat plays a 21st century mash-up inspired by Brazilian maracatu drumming, New Orleans second line rhythms, Appalachian music, funk and country-blues......

- Midwest Record
August 09, 2011

........“A delightful genre bender that is defining it's own style”. (8/9/2011)

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Past Press Reviews