The coastal rainforest of Brazil, otherwise known as Mata Atlantica, and "its beauty and vivacity" are the inspiration for Retiro e Ritmo. It is an album frontloaded with a varied cast of characters from hither and yon. Maybe that casting is behind a project seeking to draw worldwide attention to the ongoing shit-storm that includes not only the Amazon but the whole planet.

Retiro e Ritmo is deceptive, calling attention to a source of worldwide calamity all the while proffering some righteously beautiful music. Initiator and co- producer Mathias Derer presents a political project that utilizes the best that the aesthetic community can offer. Its music tends towards the otherworldly even as it redirects our attention in the direction of something tangible and increasingly evanescent. There is tragedy embedded in this Song of the South, but it is hard not to groove to the danceable vibe expressed in the floating lilt of "Quando Como Aranhas," which is loaded with pervasive ambient sound effects, trinkles of percussive punctuations and some jazzy keyboard accents. This music is the opposite of a doom-and-gloom treatise. Instead, Retiro e Ritmo mirrors the historic ecstasy of what has been and hopefully still is life among those indigenous as well as the recently arrived. It is not a pointing toward a shangri-la that's fading away but a reminder of what this Brazilian culture has offered the world for longer than all of us have been alive.

As "Quando" amply demonstrates in its 10-minute oration, there are many twists and turns to this music, the song mutating, resisting standard arrangement strategies, opting to take us into different terrains under one umbrella of sonic sheens. "Sempre O Mesmo" returns us to the tantalizing vocals that meander through this music like a snaky river, the multifarious mingling with the plangent message of the here-and-now. Think of the song's bouncy rhythms and recurrent choruses as a kind of bossa pop, multilayered, fortified with some rigorous fusions. This tune demonstrates how the sound of surprise (so often invoked when one thinks of the best jazz has to offer) can elevate expectations all the while confounding them.

Tropical field recordings are aligned with the hot players onboard. At times, the mix is reminiscent of the studio wizardry