Psychogeography: Phillipi & Rodrigo in São Paulo

Commentary

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, and the seventh largest in the world, home to a huge 20 million people. Rich in history and culture, the city has become a melting pot for creativity with many young artists moving to the city to connect and share ideas with likeminded people.

Brazilian duo Phillipi & Rodrigo call this city home. The duo, who also operate under the guise of Fatnotronic, are known for their meticulous sampling of sounds native to their country and are set to release their debut album on Soulwax's record label Deewee. Ahead of the release, the pair let us into some of their favourite spots and guide us around their stomping ground.

Rodrigo

Downtown São Paulo

São Paulo is a large city, but funnily enough all the major record stores are within a couple of blocks distance. Combining the three "Galerias", we have more than 20 stores to go through; you could lose an entire day there. But I guess the most fun thing to do is always to ask tips to the owners, most of them are very friendly. Remember these names: Carlinhos, Celso, Vicente, Dorival, Tony, Andressa and Luciano. Always check conditions of the record and if possible, always have someone local to go with you – they can always get you discounts, funny stories, crazy deals, etc. Don't hesitate to hit us up to join your party, we're always up for it!

São Paulo food district

Since record shopping is very time consuming, our advice is to eat while you're there. You have some amazing choices at very affordable prices, from Portuguese (Leiteria Ita), northeast food (feijão do norte), Peruvian (Rinconcito) to the best chicken thighs you'll ever have (churrasqueto). We get our 'home cooking' fix there when we come back from touring abroad.

SESC Concerts

We live in a city where there's ALWAYS something happening, especially when it comes to concerts. Our advice is to always check the calendar for SESC concerts. They happen all over town and for every sort of crowd and it's great 'cos they're usually smaller concerts, but at the same time you have legends like Donato, Marcos Valle or Eliana Pittman showing what they do best. And if you're a fanboy like we usually are with those artists, they always hang around after the show.

Phillipi

Pinheiros

São Paulo is a big crazy city with really nice places to go for a walk, to eat and buy stuff. There’s always lot going on here and all the time. My hood Pinheiros is a really nice area to walk. It's an upcoming area of São Paulo with some of the best new restaurants and bars, like Bao Bao Baby for Chinese Bao’s and Le Jazz for French cuisine and drinks.

Orfeu

In the central area there is this place called Orfeu. It's a restaurant and a small cozy club. I have my own disco night over there called Larry. We put it on every two months and it’s important for us to have intimate parties like these.

Patua Records

My advice for vinyl lovers is to check Patua Records in Vila Madalena; a nice selection of records and sometimes they have some small parties. Then for culture, you have this place around Paulista called Instituto Morera Salles. It’s a really cool cultural centre – important for cross-cultural connections – with great exhibitions. Nearby, we have this really nice park called Parque Do Ibirapuera. I used to go running there a lot with Iggor Cavalera.