Thievery Corporation Saudade

Coming off the paranoid and dark Culture of Fear, where Orwellian ideas and dub beats filled the speakers, Thievery Corporation do a severe about-face with Saudade, an album that embraces the bossa nova and Brazilian rhythms, and ups the organic material content of the group's output. Horns, strings, and nylon-string guitars are hired, rather than sampled, on an album where Thievery members Rob Garza and Eric Hilton play mostly guitar and bass. They also curate and produce, coming up with a fine set of wistful tunes and suitable, alluring singers when it comes to the former, but they come up a bit short when it comes to the latter. Vocalist Lou Lou Ghelichkhani is a wonderfully subdued siren who can deliver with all the breezy sway required for beautiful songs like "Decollage" and "Bateau Rouge," and yet the production is all strings and vocals up front as everything else falls toward the back, making these bossa nova recordings more "hot" than "warm." Leave a Caipirinha in the sun too