Goma-Laca is a kind of research center dedicated to discover Brazilian music from the first half of the last century that is registered in 78 RPM shellac records (goma laca in Portuguese). Since 2009 the journalists Ronaldo Evangelista and Biancamaria Binazzi look for an exchange between archives and approaches, eras and generations, investigating contexts and contemporaneities that they realize radio programs, articles, music selections, records and shows.
They started by publishing on the website recordings found in public and private collections including the first releases of Afrobrazilian music ever. In 2011, the project Goma Laca Vol. 1 focused on a library created in 1935 and developed together with the Cultural Center of São Paulo a partnership for a concert and a radio program about the history of music of African origin registered on Brazilian records.
For the show the instrumental group Sambanzo led by Thiago França and including Kiko Dinucci invited Emicida, Juçara Marçal, Marcelo Pretto, Luisa Maita, Bruno Morais and Rodrigo Brandão for recontextualizing the Brazilian music production of the times of the gramophone.
That concept went further in February 2014 with the recordings of the album “Afrobrasilidades em 78 rpm” that presents reinventions based on Candomblé, Capoeira, Jongos, Coco-Rojão, Emboladas and Choros from the decades of 1920 to 1950. The musical direction and arrangements are in charge of Letieres Leite and this time the invited vocalists are Karina Buhr, Lucas Santtana, Russo Passapusso and Juçara Marçal. Together with the band they created a spiritual-jazzistic sound with Afro-Bahian rhythms that resulted in a new way of Brazilian music from the first half of the 20th century. With collective creativity they find new significations between origins and actuality.
Download the album for free from their website.
You can listen to the original songs here and the booklet contains interesting information of the roots and routs of the compositions.
