Brazil truly seems like its own little world, a nation known for its cultural output, yet it always feels like it's not exactly put out there as much as the rest of the world peeks in. For Brazilian surf music, they have a champion advocating on their behalf: Reverb Brasil, headed by Leopoldo "Mocotó" Furtado. Reverb Brasil is to some extent a label, but mostly a platform to spread the word about Brazilian surf music. Reverb Tsunami is their most strident statement yet.

For those that got into surf somewhere after the 80’s and before bandcamp, compilations were key for exposure to more surf groups. That’s slowed down significantly, with only a handful of notable ones in the past few years (off the top of my head Brave New Surf and Monsters of Surf). Reverb Nation serves a dual purpose of commemorating a great lineup at the Surfguitar 101 convention (the tracks are mostly in the same sequence of the performances) and as a surf compilation.

Ace Records continues their "Birth of Surf" series with a brand new Volume 3, curated by Alan Taylor and Dave Burke of Pipeline Magazine. Like the others, it's a total mix of basic-level surf songs to nearly unheard-of rarities. I'm pleased to see Johnny and the Hurricanes' "Sheba" on there - pretty common if you're digging for 45s, rarely finds its way to compilations, and it's easily my favorite song of theirs.

The Surf Raiders were one of the big "second wave" surf groups in the 80s. Admittedly, I haven't done my homework on them, but that task just got a lot easier now that their originals are compiled onto this 13 song CD.