• Macau Home
• What's On
• Features
• Restaurants
• 
• 
• Bookmark this site

Sailing the elusive post-colonial party channels all the way to China, Lisbon-based Buraka Som Sistema have managed to smuggle their breakneck shanty party sound onto the line-up of the always staid and heavily orchestral Macau International Music Festival. Easily the best free party of the fortnight, Buraka Som Sistema play the 400-year-old Macau Mont Fortress on Friday 30. In the spirit of former Portuguese colonial unity (and getting good and drunk before this most visceral of gigs), we recommend pre-made caipirinhas for the after-work ferry ride.

For the uninitiated: Buraka Som Sistema play kuduro, a frantic, high energy dance music that emerged in the streets of Luanda, the capital of Angola, in the late 1980s. Like the baile funk of Brazil or kwaito of South Africa, kuduro is an exotic but oddly global amalgamation of hip hop, international electronic music, festival song, and Luandan street patois. It’s often produced on beat-up computers or salvaged electronics. It hits hard. Thanks largely to a guest spot by M.I.A. on an early single, and heavy play by indie taste maker DJ Diplo, Buraka Som Sistema have been the sound’s most popular emissaries to the wider world since the release of their first album late last year.

In support of their current autumn tour, earlier this month the group released, Restless, a new iTunes-only single. Less the four-alarm dance floor freakout of last year’s absolute banger, Sound of Kuduro, the new track is a big shiny party pleaser. Over a thumping soca-inflected house beat and skittering snares, DJ Lil’ John (not that Lil’ John) channels the epic melodrama of early 1990s house vocals, crooning to his girl, threatening an ice cold shoulder if her love ain’t true. If you’re sitting on the sidelines when Buraka drop this one in the Fortress, you will indeed grow restless. Instantly. This party is BYOBFATS (Bring your own big fat ass to shake).

Patrick Brzeski