Elza Soares - The woman at the end of the world (A mulher do fim do mundo) (2016)

Septuagenarian Brazilian music icon Elza Soares teams up with the cream of São Paulo's avant-garde musicians for an album of apocalyptic, experimental samba sujo (‘dirty samba’) that tackles the burning issues of 21st century Brazil: racism, domestic violence, sex and drug addiction.

The Woman at the end of the world is Elza’s 34th studio album and her first to feature previously unrecorded material, exclusively composed for her. Voted ‘Best Album of 2015’ by Rolling Stone Brazil it was released to universal mdia acclaim by UK based label Mais Um Discos on June 10 2016.

Over a sprawl of distorted guitars, squalling horns, taught strings and electronic shards, samba is savaged by rock ‘n’ roll, free-jazz, noise and other experimental music forms as Elza sings, spits and screams tales of a life in Brazil that is anything but a tropical paradise. A true legend of Brazilian music Elza has an incredible musical oeuvre that stretches back over seven decades mixing samba with jazz, soul, funk, hip hop and electronica, whilst her life-story is a rags-to-riches-to-rags rollercoaster of triumphs and tragedies that has made her a voice for Brazil’s repressed female, black, gay and working class populations.

Born in a Rio de Janeiro favela, Elza was forced by her father into an abusive marriage aged 12. She won a radio talent show at 16, hosted by Brazilian composer Ari Barroso and by the time she was 21 she was already a widow who had given birth to three children, one of who died of malnutrition. Her music career began in the late 1950s as she sung in clubs and hotels - sometimes being forced to perform off stage because of her skin colour.

The ‘60s was a career-defining period with a run of classic albums for Odeon yet in 1966 this black, working-class single mother was vilified by the press for having an affair with world famous Brazilian footballer Garrincha. They were both expelled from Brazil as the military junta took power in ’69, yet returned a few years later. They had a son in 1976 before Garrincha passed from alcoholism in 1983 and then in 1986 their son was tragically killed in a car crash.

Elza then faded into obscurity, before a new album in 1997 saw her named ‘Best Samba Singer’ at the prestigious Prêmio Sharp Awards, with international recognition two years later when she was chosen by BBC World Service to represent Brazil in its Millennium Concerts series. Since then she has toured heavily in Brazil with occasional studio outings: in 2003 she recorded the album ‘Do Coccix ate O Pescoço with producer Kassin and in 2014 featured on Gilles Peterson’s ‘Brasil Bam, Bam, Bam’.

And so to the latest chapter in the soap opera that is Elza Soares life; her as muse to São Paulo’s hyped samba sujo scene, creating an album that walks a tightrope between post-rock and post-samba, a contemporary classic that speaks of a country in a deep crisis and is a spectacular comeback from a singer repeatedly written off: “I knew this album would be a bold, modern sound” she says. “These songs are tense - they do not allow you to relax”.