Music

What We're Digging Right Now - Matuto

• by Melissa Bobbitt
• May 19, 2013

Image by Vincent Soyez

Whereas modern folk artists like Mumford & Sons draw inspiration from the Deep South - blazin' banjos and porch-rattling foot stomps - one band is migrating its influences to the Deep, Deep South-- South America, that is.

The six-member Brooklyn collective Matuto (Northeastern Brazilian slang for "bumpkin") live like it's Carnival every day. Zig-zagging accordions dance around nimble jazz riffs that whisper with the ghosts of Cajun and African rhythms. The genre known as forro-rock creeps into the psyche as Clay Ross spins yarns about running from temptation on The Devil and the Diamond (Motema Music).

As if Matuto's sound and interests couldn't get more varied, the narrative binding the 12 effervescent tracks is derived from the tenets of Buddhism. Striving to be one's best self, all while shimmying like there's no tomorrow? We can groove with that.