>>Especiais >>Novidade 'Amarelo Manga' Soundtrack Various Artists (INST/Ybrazil) By Ben Ratliff Containing the songs and incidental music heard in a recent Brazilian film by Claudio Assis, "Amarelo Manga: Trilha Sonora" (INST/Ybrazil) functions as both moody background music and an index of a fascinating little scene in pop music. That's the scene around Recife, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco. In the mid-90's, the exciting new rock from that region was called Mangue Beat; an eternity in pop years has gone by since then, and the music has changed sufficiently that this soundtrack album offers a progress report on the post-Mangue. What's changed is that D.J.'s and electronic artists have opened up the Recife scene and made a deep mark on the instrumental bands. The grooves have spread out, become spacier, the low end deeper; the old punk aggression has been replaced by a dub-reggae influence. In short, Mangue Beat has grown up and become some of the best mature pop around. Some songs on the soundtrack CD are fragmentary ropy surf-guitar with reggae grooves and melodica, or in one amazing little piece, a trio of didjeridoo, spitfire metal guitar and parade drums. Its main contributors are Lucio Maia and Jorge du Peixe of the band Naçao Zumbi, working in various spin off groupings. But there are complete songs too, and very nearly great ones. Fred Zero Quatro, leader of the band Mundo Livre S/A, contributes a lovely track, "Ligia," as good as anything he has done with his band; his pleading voice, unspooling irregularly over rhythm, complements a slow, percolating beat, with nylon-string acoustic guitar, Hammond organ and snippets of backward-running samples threading through the background. And the magnificent Nação Zumbi itself contributes one killer track, "Tempo Amarelo," with its thunderous batucada drums.