Summer Sounds

After the success of his 2006 comeback album, Timeless, Brazilian legend Sergio Mendes makes a quick and welcome return and successfully avoids the trap that Carlos Santana has previously plunged headfirst into.

Santana’s Supernatural was a couldn’t-miss combination of quality tunes and chart-friendly performers that reaped plaudits and Grammys by the barrow load. On his followup, Shaman, he upped the number of guests yet the quality control went out of the window. So while Sergio Mendes adheres to the polished blueprint that gave him his greatest commercial success, it’s not at the expense of the material contained therein. On Encanto he mostly blocks off the revolving door of passing contemporary talent and delivers a neatly effective early summer soundtrack.

Producer will.i.am is back in Mendes’s corner, but his presence is not as pervasive, only adding his weight to the four tracks that bookend the album. His Black Eyed Peas bandmate Fergie appears on a cover of the Bacharach/David classic The Look Of Love, the very idea of which sounds horrific, but is surprisingly decent, though it doesn’t come close to Dusty Springfield’s reading of it (and nor would you expect it to).

For the most part Mendes surrounds himself with old friends, such as Natalie Cole and Herb Alpert, and fellow countrymen, with the likes of Carlinhos Brown and Vanessa Da Mata adding spirited flavour to this ebullient cocktail. For those who baulked at the more overt hip-hop influences on Timeless, it’s pleasing that Mendes’s signature piano and Rhodes playing is more dominant here.

Funky Bahia and Agua de Beber are the most obvious holdovers from Encanto’s predecessor and, despite their quality, these are thankfully the exception rather than the rule, with jazz and samba adding bright texture to proceedings. With exotic percussion taking clear precedence over electronic beats, Encanto should appeal to both old and new fans alike.