Marcio Local

It's 1973, Jorge Ben's playing the beach at Copacabana, everybody's wearing crocheted bikinis, and samba-soul -- that potent mixture of American soul and Brazilian samba -- lingers like patchouli in the humid air. Only it's 2009, and Marcio Local wasn't even born in 1973. But sometimes the past owns us more completely than the present. If Local's debut album is an exercise in nostalgia, it's also a call to slow the heck down. Immersed in his deep baritone, easy funk and the cavaquinho's high-pitched strum, you may find yourself pitching your to-do list and heading for the beach.