music to milk by: Ed Motta

I'll be honest in saying that's it's extremely rare for me to find a modern-day singer-songwriter that really excites me, but Ed Motta certainly belongs to that elite few. He is famously the nephew of the legendary Brazilian singer Tim Maia, although a consistently solid output of music between 1990 to the present day has made Ed Motta well and truly an artist in his own right. Motta's music draws influence from acts as diverse as Steely Dan, Donny Hathaway, John Coltrane as well as Brazilian greats like Moacir Santos and of course Maia and the rich MPB tradition. His long-player output tends to fluctuate in genre, with some albums being heavily jazz-based and others more in the vein of a soulful-pop sound. I am going to focus on the pop side of Motta's music here; partly because its more accessible, but also because I really just want to give you a taster. His albums are pretty much all worth getting hold of, and so I urge you to check them out!

I have included music here from three of Ed Motta's albums of the past decade including his latest release Piquenique, the title track of which was my probably favourite song of 2009.