title: Steve Hillage

text: Stewart and Paul Francis joined replacing Boulé and McKenzie respectively, and this line-up played the 1979 Glastonbury Festival. The group recorded "Open" at Ridge Farm Studio in August with a guest contribution from Jean-Philippe Rykiel, released on 12 October followed by a tour of Britain, Germany, France and Holland through to December.


title: Steve Hillage

text: During the 1980s, Hillage worked as a record producer, working for artists such as Simple Minds, It Bites, Murray Head, Nash the Slash, Real Life, Cock Robin, Tony Banks and Robyn Hitchcock.


title: Steve Hillage

text: In 1982, Hillage and Giraudy issued the albums "For To Next" and "And Not Or", the last studio albums issued under Hillage's own name. The titles were derived from BASIC programming language and reflect the pair's movement into computer-based music production, this being mainly synthetic except for Hillage's guitar.


title: Steve Hillage

text: After hearing the likes of The Orb playing his 1979 ambient record "Rainbow Dome Musick", Hillage and Giraudy began performing in the early 1990s as ambient dance act System 7. They soon became part of the underground dance scene in London and Hillage was also a key figure in getting the Glastonbury Festival to recognise the dance scene and set up the Dance Tent, which he programmed in its first year. Hillage also produced in the 1990s a raï musical show called '1, 2, 3 Soleils', featuring Algerian singers Faudel, Rachid Taha and Khaled. He also arranged many songs of Latifa.


title: Steve Hillage

text: In November 2006, he made a surprise return to the Gong fold when he and Giraudy performed with (most of) the "classic era" lineup of Gong performing a set consisting almost entirely of material from the Radio Gnome Trilogy and Camembert Electrique at the Gong Unconvention at the Melkweg in Amsterdam.


title: Steve Hillage

text: In January 2007, four of his albums – "Fish Rising", "L", "Motivation Radio" and "Rainbow Dome Musick" – were released in the UK remastered on CD, each, except the latter, with previously unreleased bonus tracks. In February 2007, "Green", "Live Herald", "Open" and "For To Next/And Not Or" followed, similarly remastered with bonus content.


title: Steve Hillage

text: Hillage and Giraudy's participation in the Gong Unconvention was reprised in a small number of concerts held by Gong in London in June 2008, where Hillage and Giraudy were among the line-up which also included Daevid Allen, Gilli Smyth, and Mike Howlett. At these concerts, Hillage would often open the show performing "Steve Hillage Band" material, as he had at the Uncon. Hillage and Giraudy worked most recently on their 2009 album 2032 (which Hillage also produced), and has continued to tour with the band throughout 2009 and 2010. After the 2010 tour, citing musical differences, Steve & Miquette again parted ways with Gong.


title: Steve Hillage

text: His next association with Gong was a guest guitar solo on the title track of their 2016 album "Rejoice! I'm Dead", their first album recorded after the death of Daevid Allen. Though no longer featuring any original members, the current lineup of Kavus Torabi (guitar/vocals), Fabio Golfetti (guitar/vocals), Dave Sturt (bass), Ian East (saxophone/flute) and Cheb Nettles (drums/vocals) had the blessing of Allen (along with the blessing of other surviving members) to continue using the Gong name. Soon after, Hillage made a few guest appearances at Gong gigs (sometimes being billed as "Gong featuring Steve Hillage"), culminating in late 2018 with the announcement that Hillage & Giraudy had tapped the current lineup of Gong to be their backing band/opening act for a series of Steve Hillage Band shows in 2019. Continued touring plans for 2020, however, were halted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Steve Hillage

text: Hillage played live with Hawkwind in December 2015 at The Coronet, London, and also played a one-hour set with Dave Brock and Tim Blake of the band at Hawkwind's Hawkeaster festival in Morecambe, Lancashire at Easter, 2018.


title: Steve Hillage

text: "Light in the Sky", from his 1977 album "Motivation Radio", was used as the theme for "The Sunday Night Project" on Channel 4.


title: Steve Hillage

text: Hillage played on a cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man" on William Shatner's 2011 release "Seeking Major Tom".


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: The Hong Kong Premier League () is a Hong Kong professional football league organised by the Hong Kong Football Association. It is currently sponsored by BOC Life and officially known as BOC Life Hong Kong Premier League (). The inaugural season began in September 2014. It is the top-division football league in Hong Kong.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: On 7 February 2013, the Hong Kong Football Association stated that the new Premier League would get under way in Autumn 2014, where it was suggested that the 2013–14 season would be a transition year. As a result, the 2013–14 Hong Kong First Division League was the last season of the First Division to be the top tier of football in the Hong Kong league system.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: The clubs already in the top division initially reacted negatively to the perceived increased running costs of competing in a professional league, particularly one where some felt that there was little difference to the old First Division. Five clubs – Citizen, Southern, Sun Hei, Happy Valley and Tuen Mun all eventually decided against joining the new league, which led to fears that the HKFA's plan to start the league with a minimum of 8 teams would not be possible. In the end, however, through public funding and government support, two teams from the Hong Kong Second Division were able to meet the new league licence requirements and were promoted, making a total of 9 teams for the first season.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: With the recent completion of 'Project Phoenix' which started in 2011, the league has seen some improvements with further amendments planned for the future. This includes a new five-year funding agreement, a new licensing scheme for league member clubs, prize money for all participating teams and new measures put in place against corruption and match-fixing.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: Kitchee were crowned as champions of the inaugural season, after amassing a total of 36 points in the league with only 2 losses. Tai Po finished bottom of the league with only 7 points.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: The following season, Eastern won the league with a game to spare, winning their first top flight championship in 20 years. They also created history, as they were the first team in the world to win a top flight men's title whilst being managed by a female coach. Wong Tai Sin were relegated after finishing last in the league.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: In the 2016–17 season, Kitchee reclaimed the title on the final day of the season in a showdown with rivals Eastern, a game which they won 4–1. Eastern later won the End-of-Season playoffs and will therefore also compete along with Kitchee in the 2018 AFC Champions League. HKFC finished bottom of the table, and were thus automatically relegated to the First Division.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: Kitchee successfully defended their title in 2017–18, becoming the first club to repeat as champions the following year.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: In the 2018–19 season, Tai Po won the league, becoming the first district team to win a top flight title since Yuen Long in 1962–63.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021–22 season was curtailed and ultimately cancelled, with the championship withheld: this was the first time a top flight league season had been cancelled since the Second World War.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: The first season kicked off in September 2014, with 9 teams competing for the championship. It was initially suggested that a relegation system would not apply for the first few seasons, and that teams would continue to be promoted to the top-tier league until there were 12 member clubs. In the end, however, the HKFA decided that one club would be relegated and one club would be promoted from the 2014–15 Hong Kong First Division League.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: By 2016–17, the league had expanded to 11 teams. The HKFA promoted Tai Po and HKFC who had finished at the top of the 2015–16 Hong Kong First Division into the league while adding expansion teams Hong Kong Sapling and R&F. Wong Tai Sin were relegated from the previous season and Metro Gallery chose to self relegate due to financial difficulties.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: For the 2017–18 season, the league moved down to ten teams after Hong Kong's most successful and longest running top flight club South China chose to relegate themselves to the First Division in a shock move after the departure of their chairman, and them failing to find suitable financial means to keep the club in the Premier League. HKFC were also relegated after finishing bottom of the table.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: The champions of the league qualify for the 2nd qualifying round of the AFC Champions League, while the champions of the Hong Kong FA Cup qualify for the playoff round of the AFC Cup. Should the league champions fail to qualify for the Champions League, they will instead receive Hong Kong's East Asia Zone group stage slot in the AFC Cup. Previously the FA Cup winners and the teams finishing in 2nd, 3rd and 4th competed in an end of season playoff for the final spot in the AFC Champions League, but this format was abolished after the 2016–17 season.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: Each Hong Kong Premier League team form their own reserve team which competes in the Hong Kong Reserve Division League ().


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: Live matches and highlights shows are provided free of charge through online website Facebook and Youtube in Cantonese.


title: Hong Kong Premier League

text: With regards to English coverage, the official Hong Kong Football Association website, and to a lesser extent the South China Morning Post, provide match reports, player interviews, club information and league data. The Hong Kong Football Podcast also covers the HKPL on a fortnightly basis.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The Northeast Region of Brazil (; ) is one of the five official and political regions of the country according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Of Brazil's twenty-six states, it comprises nine: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, along with the Fernando de Noronha archipelago (formerly a separate territory, now part of Pernambuco).


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Chiefly known as Nordeste ("Northeast") in Brazil, this region was the first to be colonized by the Portuguese and other European peoples, playing a crucial role in the country's history. "Nordeste"'s dialects and rich culture, including its folklore, cuisines, music and literature, became the most easily distinguishable across the country. To this day, "Nordeste" is known for its history and culture, as well as for its natural environment and its hot weather.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: "Nordeste" stretches from the Atlantic seaboard in the northeast and southeast, northwest and west to the Amazon Basin and south through the Espinhaço highlands in southern Bahia. It encloses the São Francisco River and drainage basin, which were instrumental in the exploration, settlement and economic development of the region. The region lies entirely within the earth's tropical zone and encompasses Caatinga, Atlantic Forest and part of the Cerrado ecoregions. The climate is hot and semi-arid, varying from xeric in Caatinga, to mesic in Cerrado and hydric in the Atlantic Forest.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The Northeast Region represents 18% of Brazilian territory, has a population of 53.6 million people, 28% of the total population of the country, and contributes 13.4% (2011) of Brazil's GDP. Nearly three quarters of the population live in urban areas clustered along the Atlantic coast and about 15 million people live in the hinterland. It is an impoverished region: 43.5% of the population lives in poverty, defined as less than $2/day.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Each of the states' capitals are also its largest cities, and they include Salvador, Recife, Fortaleza and São Luís, all of which are coastal cities with a population above one million.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: "Nordeste" has nine international airports, and the region has the second largest number of passengers (roughly 20%) in Brazil.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The "Zona da Mata" comprises the rainforest zones of "Nordeste" (part of the Atlantic Forest or "Mata Atlântica") in the humid eastern coast, where the region's largest capital cities are also located. The forest area was much larger before suffering from centuries of deforestation and exploration. For many years, sugar cane cultivation in this region was the mainstay of Brazil's economy, being superseded only when coffee production developed in the late 19th century. Sugar cane is cultivated on large estates whose owners maintain tremendous political influence.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Since the escarpment does not generate any further rainfall on its slopes from the lifting of the trade winds, annual rainfall decreases steadily inland. After a relatively short distance, there is no longer enough rainfall to support tropical rainforest, especially since the rainfall is extremely erratic from year to year. This transitional zone is known as the "agreste" and because it is located on the steep escarpment, was not generally used whilst flatter land was abundant. Today, with irrigation water available, however, the "agreste", as its name suggest, is a major farming region. Despite containing no major city, it contains well developed medium large cities such as Caruaru, Campina Grande and Arapiraca.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In Portuguese, the word "sertão" (, meaning "backcountry" or "outback") first referred to the vast hinterlands of Asia and South America that Lusitanian explorers encountered. In Brazil, the geographical term referred to backlands away from the Atlantic coastal regions where the Portuguese first settled in South America in the early sixteenth century.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Geographically, the "Sertão" consists mainly of low uplands that form part of the Brazilian Highlands. Most parts of the sertão are between 200 and 500 meters above sea level, with higher elevations found on the eastern edge in the Planalto da Borborema, where it merges into a sub-humid region known as agreste, in the Serra da Ibiapaba in western Ceará and in the Serro do Periquito of central Pernambuco. In the north, the "Sertão" extends to the northern coastal plains of Rio Grande do Norte state, whilst in the south it fades out in the northern fringe of Minas Gerais.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Because the "Sertão" lies close to the equator, temperatures remain nearly uniform throughout the year and are typically tropical, often extremely hot in the west. However, the sertão is distinctive in its low rainfall compared to other areas of Brazil. Because of the relatively cool temperatures in the South Atlantic Ocean, the intertropical convergence zone remains north of the region for most of the year. Consequently, conditions are very dry for most of the year.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Although annual rainfall averages between 500 and 800 millimeters over most of the sertão and 1300 millimeters on the northern coast of Fortaleza, it is confined to a short rainy season. This season extends from January to April in the west, but in the eastern Sertão it generally occurs from March to June. However, rainfall is extremely erratic and in some years the rains are minimal, leading to catastrophic drought. The duration of droughts has increased over the last 36 years, with the 2012–2016 drought being the longest drought in the region's history. Because of this vulnerability to the climate, Sertão is also known as a “polygon of drought.” Due to global warming, more frequent, more severe and longer droughts are estimated to hit the region over the next 90 years. Despite the increasing severity of the droughts, Brazil has become increasingly able to mitigate the negative social impacts associated with drought.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: While generally successful in helping those enduring drought, drought relief programs have historically resulted in a so-called "indústria da seca" (drought industry). The term, coined by Antônio Callado, describes the phenomenon wherein local politicians use droughts as a tool to increase their electoral chances, effectively "trading drought relief for votes." This misappropriation of funds often benefits the wealthy—especially private landowners—to the detriment of the rural poor.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: "Meio-Norte" is a transition area between the high rainfalls region of Amazon Rainforest and the semi arid region of "Sertão" (hot and drought) covering the state of Maranhão and half of Piaui.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The Northeast region comprises the drainage basins of the São Francisco, Canindé, and Parnaíba Rivers.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Geographically, "Nordeste" consists chiefly of an eroded continental craton with many low hills and small ranges. The highest peaks are around in Bahia, while further north there are no peaks above . On its northern and western side, the plateaus fall steadily to the coast and into the basin of the Tocantins River in Maranhão, but on the eastern side it falls off quite sharply to the coast except in the valley of the São Francisco river. The steep slopes and long cliffs of the eastern coastline are known as "The Great Escarpment".


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The escarpment serves an extremely important climatic function. Because for most of the year "Nordeste" is out of reach of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the easterly trade winds blow across the region, giving abundant rainfall to the coast but producing clear, dry conditions inland where the escarpment blocks moisture flow. This gives rise to four distinct regions, the zona da mata on the coast, the agreste on the escarpment, sertão beyond and the Mid north.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Before the arrival of Europeans, "Nordeste" was inhabited by indigenous peoples, mostly speaking languages of the Tupi–Guarani family. In the "Sertão" region, tribes could also be found.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: It was the first area of Brazil to be colonized when roughly 1,500 Portuguese arrived on April 22, 1500, under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral at Porto Seguro, in what is now the state of Bahia.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The coast of "Nordeste" saw the first economic activity of the country, namely the extraction and export of pau Brasil, or brazilwood. Indigenous peoples helped Europeans with the extraction of brazilwood in exchange for spices. They also engaged in an exchange of goods (), trading things like animal skins for knives and other valuables. Brazilwood was highly valued in Europe where it was used to make violin bows (especially the Pau de Pernambuco variety) and for the red dye it produced. Countries like France, which disagreed with the Treaty of Tordesillas (a papal bull decreed by the Spanish-born Pope Alexander VI in 1493 which sought to divide South America between the Spanish and the Portuguese), launched many attacks on the coast to steal the wood.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Soon after their arrival, Portuguese settlers began to displace native peoples and enslave them as field laborers, leading to conflicts in which many natives died. These conflicts were one contributor to the decline of the indigenous population, which intensified as colonization, commercial interest, and disease escalated in the region. After resistance from indigenous peoples and opposition to their enslavement from the Jesuits, the Portuguese colonials began importing black African slaves in 1530, largely to Bahia.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: French colonists not only tried to settle in present-day Rio de Janeiro, from 1555 to 1567 (the so-called France Antarctique episode), but also in present-day São Luís, from 1612 to 1614 (the so-called France Equinoxiale). The Dutch, also opposed to the Treaty of Tordesillas, plundered "Nordeste"'s coast, sacked Bahia in 1604, and even temporarily captured Salvador, which had been Brazil's first capital and general seat of government since 1549. However, the Portuguese soon regained control of Salvador, and the Dutch were unable to recapture it, despite repeated attempts.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 1630, the Dutch captured Pernambuco and made Recife () their capital. By 1640, they had set up more permanently in "Nordeste" and controlled a long stretch of coast that was most accessible to Europe without, however, penetrating the interior. The colonists of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in Brazil were under constant siege despite the presence in Recife of John Maurice of Nassau as governor. To help fight the Portuguese, the WIC sought the support of native peoples. By 1635, the majority of Tupi, mostly from Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba, had given their support to the Dutch, as they viewed the Portuguese as more brutal and believed that they would be better off if the Dutch remained in Brazil. The military aid provided by the Tupi population proved to be useful in 1645, when Portuguese colonists who had remained in Dutch-controlled territory began to revolt. Tupi mediators such as and were instrumental in maintaining strong Dutch-Tupi relations during the struggle against the Portuguese. At the end of 1653, the Portuguese succeeded in capturing Recife, effectively ending Dutch Brazil and culminating in their surrender in 1654.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Slave resistance began during the colonial era, in the 17th century, and eventually led to the formation of quilombos, or settlements of runaway and free-born African slaves. The Quilombo dos Palmares, the largest and most well-known of these settlements, was founded around 1600 in the Serra da Barriga hills, in the present state of Alagoas. Palmares, at the height of its power, was an independent, self-sustaining republic, hosting a population of over 30,000 free African men, women and children. There were over 200 buildings in the community, a church, four smithies, and a council house. Although Palmares managed to defend itself from the Dutch military and the Portuguese colonials for several decades, it was finally taken and destroyed and its leader Zumbi dos Palmares was captured and beheaded. His head was then displayed in a public plaza in Recife.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Although the King of Portugal had abolished the enslavement of native peoples in 1570, it continued until the Marquis of Pombal declared them to be 'free men' in 1755. However, by that time the practice was already rare.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Salvador remained the colonial capital until 1763 when it was succeeded by Rio de Janeiro, the new economic power center of that era.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 1850, the Eusébio de Queirós Law was passed, abolishing the international slave trade in Brazil. Following the ban, some slaves from "Nordeste" were sold to the Southeast region of Brazil (), primarily to the state of Rio de Janeiro. The percentage of slaves in Salvador dropped from 41.6% of the population in 1775 to 27.5% in 1855.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Before the rise of "Sudeste", "Nordeste" was the center of the African slave trade in Brazil, the center of the sugar industry in Brazil, and Brazil's main seaport.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Independent armed groups emerged in the Brazilian Northeast, which used guerrilla tactics to fight and were wanting to avenge crimes against family members or friends as well as fight for food and ammunition to their members, and often working for landlords who evicted the workers of the estates who reacted against exploitation in the county.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: They were formed by people of humble origin, usually from the field, under the leadership of a chief who imposed their own concept of morality, honor, justice and piety.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Gangs were pursuing isolated goals, sometimes even fighting among themselves, and had its heyday between 1922 and 1930, when terror spread throughout the semi-arid Northeast and were chased by troops from seven states; Bahia, Sergipe, Alagoas, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará, the officials even using airplanes in repeated, unsuccessful, search attempts.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In the struggle to capture the leader of the most feared of these bands, Virgolino Ferreira da Silva, Lampião, the Brazilian government went on to publish wanted posters promising 50,000,000 réis to whoever brought in Lampião "dead or alive."


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Deeply knowledgeable of the caatinga, the gangs had support from local farmers, politicians, peasants and priests, not only for fear of the bandits, but for need of their services. The rank of Captain Virgolino Ferreira, for example, was given by Father Cícero do Juazeiro.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Besides Lampião, other bandits and outlaws have also become myths in the Northeast, outlaws like Antônio Silvino Corisco, o Diabo Louro, (the Blond Devil). The entry of women into banditry happened in 1930 when Maria Bonita became fellow Cangaceiro and followed Lampião's gang. Although the highwaymen took momentum in the early 1920s, the existence of armed groups in the Northeast comes from colonial times.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: And one of the first of outlaws ever heard was The Cabeleira, in the second half of the 18th century, was active in rural areas close to Recife. According to scholars, one of the factors that contributed to the proliferation of gangs was the great drought that decimated the Northeast in 1877: extreme poverty and hunger caused thousands in the Sertão, (hinterland), with no prospect of survival, to depart for plunder, paving the way for the world of "cangaceiros".


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Banditry is at the origin in the very form of colonization in the Brazilian Northeast, where, financed by the Crown, the pioneers invaded the Sertão, fell forests, landmarks and paid the gunmen and bandits to eliminate the native populations to react to the occupation of their land.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The private armies maintained by the Northeastern colonels who owned the land since the Captaincies also differed on almost nothing, its methods, the bands of outlaws. The highwaymen was one of the most turbulent and contradictory times in Brazilian history and still comes up in a heated controversy: that the outlaws would have been righteous if they didn't become bloodthirsty bandits.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The end of the cangaceiros took place in 1938, when Lampião's gang was slaughtered, on the banks of the São Francisco River in Angicos, Alagoas. Corisco, o Diabo Louro, survived until 1940, but almost without doing anything to keep the promise to "avenge the death of Lampião."


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The regions of Brazil do not have their own governmental or administrative bodies, but they are well defined. Their boundaries and constituent states are part of the recognized geopolitical structure of the country. The Northeast Region is composed of nine states, with 1793 municipalities and two special municipalities, Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago and Fernando de Noronha Archipelago; there are no unincorporated areas. Brazilian states are divided into Mesoregions, and Mesoregions into Microregions, each region representing a group of municipalities. These regions were created by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics for statistical purposes and do not, therefore, constitute an administrative area. Municipalities are analogous to counties in states of the United States; a city is the urban area of the municipality, and always has the same name as the municipality.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: A municipality may include cities other than the one which gives it its name. The largest state of the Northeast region in terms of area, population and economic output is Bahia; its capital Salvador is the largest city of "Nordeste".


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 2016, the Northeast was in 3rd place among the 5 regions of Brazil, in terms of total wealth. The Southeast comes in 1st with 53.1% of GDP, the South in 2nd with 17%, Northeast in 3rd with 14.4% and the Center-West in 4th with 10.2%. In GDP per capita (that is, GDP per inhabitant), it is in 4th place among the 5 regions, behind the Midwest, South and Southeast. None of the states in the Northeast Region of Brazil has a percentage of GDP production above its percentage of inhabitants in the country, therefore, being in deficit – with this, the Federal Government of Brazil is obliged to redirect taxes extracted in the Southeast and South to the Northeast Region.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The region is a major producer of cashew nuts, sugar cane, cocoa, cotton and tropical fruits in general (mainly coconut, papaya, melon, banana, mango, pineapple and guarana). It also has relevant soy, maize, bean, cassava and orange productions.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The region is subject to prolonged dry spells that are worse in El Niño years. This causes a periodic rural exodus. Government responses include dams and the transfer of the São Francisco River. The worst recent droughts were in 1993, 1998 and 1999. The latter was the worst in fifty years.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 2017, the Northeast Region was the largest producer of coconut in the country, with 74.0% of national production. Bahia produced 351 million fruits, Sergipe, 234 million, and Ceará 187 million. However, the sector has been suffering strong competition and losing market to Indonesia, the Philippines and India, the world's largest producers, who even export coconut water to Brazil. In addition to climatic problems, the low productivity of coconut palms in the Northeast Region is the result of factors related to the variety of coconut harvested and the technological level used in coastal regions. In these areas, the semi-extractive cultivation system still prevails, with low fertility and without the adoption of cultural management practices. The three states that have the largest production, Bahia, Sergipe and Ceará, present a yield three times lower than that of Pernambuco, which is in 5th place in the national production. This is because most of the coconut trees in these three states are located in coastal areas and cultivated in semi-extractivist systems.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The production of cashew in Brazil is carried out almost exclusively in the Northeast. The area occupied by cashew trees in Brazil in 2017 was estimated at 505,500 ha; of this total, 99.5% is located in the Northeast. The main producers in this region are Ceará (61.6% of the national area), Rio Grande do Norte and Piauí. However, Brazil, which in 2011 was the fifth largest world producer of cashew nuts, in 2016, fell to 14th position, with 1.5% of the total volume of nuts produced in the world. Vietnam, Nigeria, India and Côte d'Ivoire were the world's largest cashew nut producers in 2016, with 70.6% of global production. In recent years, there has been increased competition with some African countries, where government programs have driven the expansion of culture and processing capacity. It is estimated that at 295 thousand tons per year the installed capacity for processing cashew nuts in the Northeast, however, the Region only managed to produce around a quarter of that quantity. Among the main world producers, Brazil has the lowest productivity. Several factors are pointed out as the cause of the low productivity and the fall in the Brazilian production of cashew nuts. One reason is that most orchards are in a phase of natural decline in production. In addition, the giant cashew trees, which are the majority in the Region, are exploited in an almost extractive manner, with low use of technology.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In the production of cocoa, for a long time, Bahia led the Brazilian production. Today, it is disputing the leadership of national production with the state of Pará. In 2017 Pará obtained the leadership for the first time. In 2019, people from Pará harvested 135 thousand tons of cocoa, and Bahians harvested 130 thousand tons. Bahia's cocoa area is practically three times larger than that of Pará, but Pará's productivity is practically three times greater. Some factors that explain this are: the crops in Bahia are more extractivist, and those in Pará have a more modern and commercial style, in addition to paraenses using more productive and resistant seeds, and their region providing resistance to Witch's broom.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 2018, the Northeast was in 3rd place among the regions that most produce sugar cane in the country. Brazil is the world's largest producer, with 672.8 million tons harvested this year. The Northeast harvested 45.7 million tons, 6.8% of national production. Alagoas is the largest producer, with 33.3% of Northeastern production (15.2 million tons). Pernambuco is the 2nd largest producer in the Northeast, with 22.7% of the total in the region (10.3 million tons). Paraíba has 11.9% of northeastern production (5.5 million tons) and Bahia, 10.24% of production (4.7 million tons).


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Bahia is the 2nd largest producer of cotton in Brazil, losing only to Mato Grosso. In 2019, it harvested 1.5 million tonnes of the product.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In soy, Brazil produced close to 120 million tons in 2019, being the largest world producer. In 2019, the Northeast produced close to 10.7 million tons, or 9% of the Brazilian total. The largest producers in the Northeast were Bahia (5.3 million tons), Maranhão (3 million tons) and Piauí (2.4 million tons).


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In the production of maize, in 2018 Brazil was the 3rd largest producer in the world, with 82 million tons. The Northeast produced about 8.4% of the country's total. Bahia was the largest producer in the Northeast, with 2.2 million tons. Piauí was the 2nd largest producer in the Northeast, with 1.5 million tons, and Maranhão was the 3rd largest, with 1.3 million tons.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 2018, the South Region was the main producer of beans with 26.4% of the total, followed by the Midwest (25.4%), Southeast Region (25.1%), Northeast (20.6%) and North (2.5%). The largest producers in the Northeast were Ceará, Bahia, Piauí and Pernambuco.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In cassava production, Brazil produced a total of 17.6 million tons in 2018. Maranhão was the 7th largest producer in the country, with 681 thousand tons. Ceará was 9th, with 622 thousand tons. Bahia was 10th with 610 thousand tons. In total, the northeast produced 3,5 million tons.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: About orange, Bahia was the 4th largest producer in Brazil in 2018, with a total of 604 thousand tons. Sergipe was 6th, with 354 thousand tons. Alagoas was 7th with 166 thousand tons.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Bahia is the second largest fruit producer in the country, with more than 3.3 million tons a year, behind São Paulo. The north of Bahia is one of the main fruit suppliers in the country. The State is one of the main national producers of ten types of fruit. In 2017, Bahia led the production of cajarana, coconut, count fruit or pinecone, soursop, umbu, jackfruit, licuri, mango and passion fruit, and is in second place in cocoa almond, atemoia, cupuaçu, lime and lemon, and third in banana, carambola, guava, papaya, watermelon, melon, cherry, pomegranate and table grapes. In all, 34 products from Bahia's fruit culture have an important participation in the national economy.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Rio Grande do Norte is the largest producer of melon in the country. In 2017 it produced 354 thousand tons, distributed between the cities of Mossoró, Tibau and Apodi. The Northeast region accounted for 95.8% of the country's production in 2007. In addition to Rio Grande do Norte, which in 2005 produced 45.4% of the country's total, the other 3 largest in the country were Ceará, Bahia and Pernambuco.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In the production of papaya, in 2018 Bahia was the 2nd largest producer state in Brazil, almost equaling with Espírito Santo. Ceará was in 3rd place and Rio Grande do Norte in 4th place.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Bahia was the largest producer of mango in the country in 2019, with production of around 281 thousand tons per year. Juazeiro (130 thousand tons per year) and Casa Nova (54 thousand tons per year) are at the top of the list of Brazilian cities that lead the cultivation of fruit.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In the production of banana, in 2018 Bahia was the 2nd largest national producer. Pernambuco came in 5th place.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Bahia is the largest Brazilian producer of guaraná. In 2017, Brazilian production was close to 3.3 million tons. Bahia harvested 2.3 million (mainly in the city of Taperoá), Amazonas 0.7 million (mainly in the city of Maués) and the rest of the country, 0.3 million. Despite the fact that the fruit originated in the Amazon, since 1989 Bahia has beaten Amazonas in terms of production volume and guarana productivity, due to the fact that the soil in Bahia is more favorable, in addition to the absence of diseases in the region. The most famous users of the product, however, acquire 90% to 100% of their guarana from the Amazon region, such as AMBEV and Coca-Cola. Bahian guarana prices are well below those of other states, but Sudam's tax exemptions lead the beverage industry to prefer to purchase seeds in the North, which helps maintain the highest added value of Amazonian guarana. The pharmaceutical industries and importers, on the other hand, buy more guarana from Bahia, due to the price.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 2017, the Northeast had 12.9% of the Brazilian cattle herd. In the sertão, producers often suffer losses due to constant droughts. There are also goat breeds, which are more resistant, pigs, sheep and birds.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Livestock fairs are common in the cities of the northeastern countryside. These fairs gave rise to cities like Campina Grande, Feira de Santana and Caruaru.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The Northeast region housed 93.2% of the goat herd (8,944,461 heads) and 64.2% of the sheep herd (11,544,939 heads) in Brazil in 2017. Bahia concentrated 30.9% of the goat herd and 20.9% of the national sheep herd. Casa Nova (BA) took first place in the municipal ranking with the largest numbers of both species.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Regarding pork, Brazil had almost 42 million hogs in 2017. The Northeast had 13% of the total (5.4 million). In poultry farming, Brazil had a total of 1.4 billion chickens in 2017. The Northeast had 11.6% of the total (164 million). In milk production, Brazil produced 33.5 billion liters in 2017. The Northeast produced 11.6% of the total (3.9 billion liters). In the production of eggs, Brazil produced 4.2 billion dozens in 2017. The Northeast produced 16.1% (683 million dozens).


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The Northeast was the 2nd largest honey producer in the country in 2017, losing to the South region. The total produced in the country was 41.6 thousand tons. The Northeast produced 30.7% (12.7 thousand tons).


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 2017, the Northeast was the largest shrimp producer in the country. National production was 41 thousand tons. Rio Grande do Norte (37.7%) and Ceará (28.9%) were the largest producers. Aracati-CE was the municipality with the highest participation .


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In Northeast Region, Bahia stands out, with 1.68% of the national mineral participation (4th place in the country). In 2017, at gold, it produced 6.2 tons, at a value of R$730 million. At copper, it produced 56 thousand tons, at a value of R$404 million. At chrome, it produced 520 thousand tons, at a value of R$254 million. In vanadium, it produced 358 thousand tons, at a value of R$91 million.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In the extraction of precious and semi-precious stones, Bahia has small or medium scale productions of amethyst, agate, diamond, emerald, garnet, opal, ruby, tourmaline and turquoise. There is also aquamarine production in Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, Alagoas and Paraíba; grenades in Paraíba, Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte; opal in Piauí and Ceará; tourmaline in Ceará and Tourmaline Paraíba in Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 2017, the Northeast Region had close to 13% of the country's industrial GDP. Bahia has 4.4% of the national industrial GDP, Pernambuco 2.7%, Ceará 1.9%, Maranhão 1.1%, Rio Grande do Norte 0.9%, Paraíba 0.7%, Sergipe 0.6%, Alagoas 0.5% and Piauí 0.4%. It is the least industrialized region of the country, in proportion per inhabitant. The states that have some relevant industrial level are Bahia, Pernambuco and Ceará.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Bahian industry have automobile and tyre industries, footwear and textiles, furniture, food and beverages, cosmetics and perfumes, information technology and naval sectors. In Brazil, the automotive sector represents close to 22% of industrial GDP. Bahia had a Ford factory. It was created in Camaçari (2001). The Bahian automotive sector, led by Ford was in 2005 the third largest contributor (14.6%) to the Bahian GDP. Currently the state is trying to replace Ford, which stopped producing in Brazil. The state also has a petrochemical complex in Camaçari.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In Pernambuco, the naval, automobile, chemical, metallurgical, flat glass, electro-electronic, non-metallic minerals, textile and food industries stand out. Currently, the Suape Industrial and Port Complex, located in the area of the homonymous port, Metropolitan Region of Recife, is the main industrial pole of Pernambuco. The state capital is home to Porto Digital, a technology park with more than 200 companies, including multinationals such as Accenture, Oracle, ThoughtWorks, Ogilvy, IBM and Microsoft, accounting for 3.9% of Pernambuco's GDP.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The main sectors of the Ceará industry are clothing, food, metallurgy, textiles, chemicals and footwear. Most of the industries are installed in the Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza, where the Industrial District of Maracanaú is located. In São Gonçalo do Amarante, a steel mill is installed, Companhia Siderúrgica do Pecém, which in 2018 produced 2.9 million tons of crude steel, of the 35.4 million produced in the country. Some of the large companies in Ceará with national reach are: Aço Cearense (steel), Companhia de Alimentos do Nordeste (food), Grendene (footwear), Café Santa Clara (coffee), Grande Moinho Cearense (mill), Edson Queiroz Group (business conglomerate, works with gas, mineral water, household appliances, communications, education, among others), Naval Industry of Ceará, J. Macêdo, M. Dias Branco (food company that manufactures, markets and distributes cookies, pasta, cakes, snacks, wheat flour, margarine and vegetable fats), Troller and Ypióca. The state is generally poor. According to 2013 data, 396,370 people live in slums in Fortaleza. Fortaleza has the 2nd largest population in a slum among cities in the Northeast. 31.6% of residents have income per capita up to half the minimum wage. The state's productivity is small.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Most coastal cities of "Nordeste", besides the capital cities, have natural amenities, such as the Abrolhos Marine National Park, Itacaré, Comandatuba Island, Costa do Sauípe, Canavieiras and Porto Seguro, in the state of Bahia; the Marine National Park of Fernando de Noronha, Porto de Galinhas beach in the state of Pernambuco; tropical paradises, such as Canoa Quebrada and Jericoacoara, on the coast of Ceará, as well as places to practice paragliding, as in Quixadá and Sobral; and Lençóis Maranhenses, embellishing the coast of Maranhão State, among many others.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In the interior, there are the national parks of Serra da Capivara and Sete Cidades, both in the state of Piauí; the city of João Pessoa in the state of Paraíba; Chapada Diamantina, in the state of Bahia; and many other attractions.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The tourist industry is based largely around the beaches of "Nordeste", attracting thousands of tourists per year from other regions of Brazil as well as from Europe (especially Italy, Portugal, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain), the United States, and Australia. There are two recognized nudist beaches in "Nordeste": Tambaba Beach north of Recife, Paraiba, and Massarandupio Beach 100 km north of Salvador, Bahia.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Planned for completion in 2013(It is now 2020?), a new railway will link Suape to the north-eastern interior. The federal government began construction in 1990, but it was postponed due to a shortage of money and only resumed in 2006. A second branch will travel north to the port of Pecém, which is also being expanded. There, the Ceará state government is setting up an institute to provide railroad travel for 12,000 workers a year, while Petrobras is also building another refinery. Paulo Roberto Costa, its downstream director, envisages trains transporting soybeans, corn, and iron ore from the interior to the ports, and returning with oil. Journey times to Europe and America will be three or four days less than from south-eastern ports. The 1,728-km line will one day carry 30 million tonnes of cargo a year.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The North-South railway and the Carajás railray in Maranhão are important logistics corridors, transporting the iron ore from the Serra dos Carajás in Pará and draining the agricultural production (soybeans, corn, cotton) of southern Maranhão, Tocantins, Goiás and Mato Groso, to the ports of Itaqui and Ponta da Madeira, in São Luís. Other products are also transported, such as cellulose and fuels.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 2018, in Maranhão, natural gas exploration in the Parnaíba Basin has the capacity to produce 8.4 million m³ of gas per day, exploited by Eneva, with the implementation of 153 km of gas pipelines, at the cost of R $9 billion. Such production is destined for the production of electric energy in the Parnaíba Power Station, with 1.4 GW of capacity. The thermal power stations has important composition in the generation of energy in the region, with other examples being the Campina Grande Power Starion, the Pecém Power Station and the Jorge Lacerda Power Station, among others.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: In 2017, due to low levels of reservoirs, wind energy accounted for 50% of the electric power generation in the region, with the states of Rio Grande do Norte, with 3,722 MW and 137 parks; Bahia, with 2,594 MW and 100 parks; Ceará, with 1,950 MW and 75 parks; Piauí, with 1,443 MW and 52 parks; Pernambuco, with 781 MW and 34 parks; Maranhão, with 220 MW and 8 parks; and Paraíba, with 157 MW and 15 parks.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: New investments, seeking to diversify the northeastern energy matrix and promote energy security, allowed in 2017 the start-up of the Solar Lapa Park (BA), with 158 MW, Solar Ituverava Park (BA), with 254 MW, and the Solar Park Nova Olinda (PI), with 292 MW, considered the largest solar parks in Latin America. In 2018, the Solar Parque Horizonte (BA) was inaugurated, with 103 MW.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Nordeste's major cities are almost all on the Atlantic coast. Some exceptions can be seen, however, like Petrolina-Juazeiro conurbation Bahia/Pernambuco (population over 500,000) on the São Francisco River and Teresina-Timon conurbation Piaui (population nearly 1,000,000) on the Parnaiba River.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Good rural areas are scarce and generally they are all near the coast, or in the west of Maranhão, and are mainly used for exportation products. In the semi-arid areas of the Northeast Region, rural areas do exist, but rain is scarce in the region; rural areas in the interior are generally based on subsistence agriculture. Fazendas (large farms) are common in the interior, where cattle-raising and the cultivation of tropical fruit is often practiced. Also, in the areas where water is scarce local politicians often use the promise of irrigation projects as a bargaining chip to win elections.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Northeastern Brazilians are a result of the mixing of Europeans, Africans and Native Americans. African ancestry is significant particularly in the coastal areas, and especially in Bahia, Pernambuco and Maranhão. Native American ancestry is also present in all states, though more significantly in Ceará and Maranhão. Northeastern Brazilians also have a significant degree of European ancestry.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The racial makeup of the region is considered to be one of the primary reasons for which Northeastern Brazilians are often the target of prejudice and discrimination within Brazil, with other reasons including the region's comparative poverty and its leftist political leanings.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The composition of the Northeast of Brazil compared to other regions of Brazil according to autosomal genetic studies focused on the Brazilian population (which has been found to be a complex melting pot of European, African and Native Americans components):


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: A 2015 autosomal genetic study, which also analysed data of 25 studies of 38 different Brazilian populations concluded that: European ancestry accounts for 62% of the heritage of the population, followed by the African (21%) and the Native American (17%). The European contribution is highest in Southern Brazil (77%), the African highest in Northeast Brazil (27%) and the Native American is the highest in Northern Brazil (32%).


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: An autosomal study from 2013, with nearly 1300 samples from all of the Brazilian regions, found a pred. degree of European ancestry combined with African and Native American contributions, in varying degrees. 'Following an increasing North to South gradient, European ancestry was the most prevalent in all urban populations (with values up to 74%). The populations in the North consisted of a significant proportion of Native American ancestry that was about two times higher than the African contribution. Conversely, in "Nordeste", Center-West and Southeast, African ancestry was the second most prevalent. At an intrapopulation level, all urban


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: populations were highly admixed, and most of the variation in ancestry proportions was observed between individuals within each population rather than among population'.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: A 2011 autosomal DNA study, with nearly 1000 samples from all over the country ("whites", "pardos" and "blacks"), found a major European contribution, followed by a high African contribution and an important Native American component. The study showed that Brazilians from different regions are more homogeneous than previously thought by some based on the census alone. "Brazilian homogeneity is, therefore, a lot greater between Brazilian regions than within Brazilian regions."


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: According to an autosomal DNA study from 2010, a new portrayal of each ethnicity contribution to the DNA of Brazilians, obtained with samples from the five regions of the country, has indicated that, on average, European ancestors are responsible for nearly 80% of the genetic heritage of the population. The variation between the regions is small, with the possible exception of the South, where the European contribution reaches nearly 90%. The results, published by the scientific "American Journal of Human Biology" by a team of the Catholic University of Brasília, show that, in Brazil, physical indicators such as colour of skin, eyes and hair have little to do with the genetic ancestry of each person, which has been shown in previous studies (regardless of census classification). Ancestry informative single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) can be useful to estimate individual and population biogeographical ancestry. Brazilian population is characterized by a genetic background of three parental populations (European, African, and Brazilian Native Amerindians) with a wide degree and diverse patterns of admixture. In this work we analyzed the information content of 28 ancestry-informative SNPs into multiplexed panels using three parental population sources (African, Amerindian, and European) to infer the genetic admixture in an urban sample of the five Brazilian geopolitical regions. The SNPs assigned apart the parental populations from each other and thus can be applied for ancestry estimation in a three hybrid admixed population. Data was used to infer genetic ancestry in Brazilians with an admixture model. Pairwise estimates of F(st) among the five Brazilian geopolitical regions suggested little genetic differentiation only between the South and the remaining regions. Estimates of ancestry results are consistent with the heterogeneous genetic profile of Brazilian population, with a major contribution of European ancestry (0.771) followed by African (0.143) and Amerindian contributions (0.085). The described multiplexed SNP panels can be useful tool for bioanthropological studies but it can be mainly valuable to control for spurious results in genetic association studies in admixed populations."


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: An autosomal DNA study from 2009 found a similar profile "all the Brazilian samples (regions) lie more closely to the European group than to the African populations or to the Mestizos from Mexico."


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: According to another autosomal DNA study from 2008, by the University of Brasília (UnB), European ancestry dominates in the whole of Brazil (in all regions), accounting for 65.90% of heritage of the population, followed by the African contribution (24.80%) and the Native American (9.3%); the European ancestry being the dominant ancestry in all regions including the Northeast of Brazil.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: A study from 1965, "Methods of Analysis of a Hybrid Population" ("Human Biology", vol 37, number 1), led by the geneticists D. F. Roberts e R. W. Hiorns, found out the average the Northeastern Brazilian to be predominantly European in ancestry (65%), with minor but important African and Native American contributions (25% and 9%).


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: "Nordeste" has a rich culture, with its unique constructions in the old centers of Salvador, Recife and Olinda, dance (frevo and maracatu), music (axé and forró) and unique cuisine. Dishes particular to the region include carne de sol, farofa, acarajé, vatapá, paçoca, canjica, pamonha, quibebe, bolo de fubá cozido, sururu de capote and many others. Salvador was the first Brazilian capital.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The festival of São João (Saint John), one of the festas juninas, is especially popular in "Nordeste", particularly in Caruaru in the state of Pernambuco and Campina Grande in the state of Paraíba. The festival takes place once a year in June. As "Nordeste" is mostly arid or semi-arid, the Northeasters give thanks to Saint John for the rainfall that typical falls this time of year, which greatly helps the farmers with their crops. And because this time of year also coincides with the corn harvest many regional dishes containing corn, such as canjica, pamonha, and milho verde, have become part of the cultural tradition.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: The Bumba-Meu-Boi festival is also popular, especially in the state of Maranhão. During the Bumba-Meu-Bói festival in the city of São Luis do Maranhão and its environs there are many different groups, with elaborate costumes and different styles of music, which are called sotaques: sotaque de orquestra, as the names implies, uses an orchestra of saxophones, clarinets, flutes, banjos, drums, etc.; sotaque de zabumba employs primarily very large drums; and sotaque de matraca, a percussion instrument made of two pieces of wood that you carry in your hands and hit against each other. Some matracas are very large and are carried around the neck.


title: Northeast Region, Brazil

text: Many major cities in "Nordeste" also hold an off-season carnaval (or "micareta"), such as the Carnatal in Natal or the Fortal in Fortaleza. Since its inception in 1991, Carnatal has become the largest off-season carnaval in Brazil. The event takes place once a year, in December, and draws roughly one million participants. The Fortal, meanwhile, takes place every July. Held in a stadium called Cidade Fortal, the Fortal is considered the largest indoor off-season carnaval in Brazil.


title: Dead Oceans

text: Dead Oceans is an American independent record label formed in 2007 and based in Bloomington, Indiana, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Dead Oceans is part of Secretly Group, which also includes labels Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar and a music publisher, Secretly Publishing, that publishes artists, writers, filmmakers, producers, and comedians.


title: Dead Oceans

text: Phil Waldorf, a Virginia native with a teenage love of skateboarding and punk rock seven-inch records, attended college in Athens, Georgia, where he was music director for the college radio station, WUOG. In Athens, Waldorf came to know future indie bands Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control in their formative years, going to early house shows before both bands rose to underground fame.


title: Dead Oceans

text: In 1998, Waldorf moved to New York City when he was hired by Other Music, a record store. He also began managing an indie label, Misra Records.


title: Dead Oceans

text: Waldorf became friends with Chris Swanson and they decided to start a label together. Swanson suggested the name Dead Oceans, from the lyrics of Bob Dylan's “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” (1962):


title: Dead Oceans

text: In 2007, Waldorf started Dead Oceans with Chris Swanson, his brother Ben Swanson, Darius Van Arman, and Jonathan Cargill of Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar. The addition of Dead Oceans to Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar's partnership led to the formation of Secretly Group.


title: Dead Oceans

text: Some of the label's earliest releases include Phosphorescent's "Pride", Dirty Projectors' "Rise Above", and Akron/Family's "Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free," ranging from folk to art punk to groove-y rock. Dead Oceans has published Julianna Barwick, Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers, Japanese Breakfast, Ryley Walker, The Tallest Man on Earth, Kevin Morby, Marlon Williams, and many others.


title: Dead Oceans

text: In 2018, Dead Oceans was listed as #7 on "Paste" magazine's top-10 record labels of 2018. Jagjaguwar was listed as #4 and Secretly Canadian was listed as #8.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Patrick Christopher Chung (born August 19, 1987) is a Jamaican-American former football safety who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons, primarily with the New England Patriots. He played college football at Oregon and was selected in the second round of the 2009 NFL Draft by the Patriots, where he spent 11 non-consecutive seasons. In between his Patriots tenure, Chung was a member of the Philadelphia Eagles for one season. A three-time Super Bowl winner with New England, Chung was named to the franchise's All-2010s Team and All-Dynasty Team in 2020.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung was born in Kingston, Jamaica. His mother is Sophia George, who was a one-hit wonder in the UK with her 1985 hit "Girlie Girlie" that reached number one in Jamaica, topping the RJR chart for 11 weeks, and was also a Top-10 hit in the UK. At the time of recording Sophia worked as a teacher of hearing impaired learners. She married her manager Ronald Chung (Patrick's father), with whom she relocated to Miami in the mid-1990s and later settled in Los Angeles. Patrick has four brothers and three sisters. He is of Chinese descent on the paternal side of his lineage.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung lived in Jamaica until he was ten before moving to California, where he attended Rancho Cucamonga High School in Rancho Cucamonga, California; he played football as a safety and wide receiver and was a two-time All-League pick.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung enrolled at the University of Oregon in 2004. After redshirting in 2004, Chung took over at the "rover" position in 2005, ranking second on the team with 91 tackles (5 solo), as he caused a fumble and deflected five passes. He earned All-Pacific-10 Conference honorable mention honors, and a spot on the Sporting News Freshman All-American Team. In 2006, Chung once again earned All-Pac-10 honorable mention, finishing third on the team with 84 tackles, two sacks, and four interceptions.


title: Patrick Chung

text: As a junior, Chung was named Second Team All-American and first-team All-Pac-10 Conference. He received the Gordon E. Wilson Award, given to the team's top special teams player. He averaged 22.3 yards on nine kickoff returns while leading the Ducks with a career-high 117 tackles (71 solos), adding 7.5 stops for loss. He broke up nine passes and was credited with a pair of interceptions.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung garnered Third Team All-American accolades in addition to making the All-Pac 10 first-team for the second consecutive year in 2008. Along with offensive lineman Max Unger, the pair set the school record with 51 consecutive starting assignments. He had 92 tackles (58 solos) in 13 games, coming up with two sacks among his 6.5 stops for loss. He caused and recovered a fumble, batted down seven passes and returned his only interception 31 yards for a touchdown.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung holds the distinction of starting more games than any other defensive player in Oregon history, having started 51 straight games during his collegiate career.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On January 16, 2008, it was announced that Chung had decided to forgo his last year of eligibility and enter the 2008 NFL Draft. Three days later, Chung announced that he decided to instead return to Oregon for his senior year. On January 24, 2009, Chung participated in the 2009 Senior Bowl as part of Cincinnati Bengals' head coach Marvin Lewis' North team that lost 18–35 to the South. He went on to attend the NFL Scouting Combine and completed the majority of drills before sustaining a knee injury. He was unable to perform the short shuttle and three-cone drill due to the injury. On March 12, 2009, he attended Oregon's pro day and ran the short shuttle, three-cone drill, and positional drills. At the conclusion of the pre-draft process, he was projected to be a second round pick by NFL draft experts and scouts. Chung was ranked as the top strong safety prospect in the draft by DraftScout.com and was ranked the second best safety by NFL analyst Mike Mayock.


title: Patrick Chung

text: The New England Patriots selected Chung in the second round (34th overall) of the 2009 NFL Draft. Chung was the second safety drafted in 2009, one pick behind Western Michigan safety Louis Delmas. The second round pick used to select Chung was previously traded from the Kansas City Chiefs to the Patriots in exchange for Matt Cassel and Mike Vrabel.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On July 27, 2009, the New England Patriots signed Chung to a four-year, $5 million contract that included a signing bonus of $2 million.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Defensive coordinator Dean Pees held a competition to name to new starting safeties between Chung, Brandon Meriweather, James Sanders, and Brandon McGowan. Head coach Bill Belichick named Chung the backup strong safety to begin the regular season, behind Brandon Meriweather.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung made his NFL debut in the Patriots' season-opener against the Buffalo Bills and recorded one tackle in a 25–24 victory. He made his first NFL tackle with teammate Darius Butler on cornerback Leodis McKelvin during a 21-yard kick return in the fourth quarter. During Week 6, Chung collected a season-high eight combined tackles, deflected a pass, and made his first NFL interception off a pass by quarterback Vince Young as the Patriots routed the Tennessee Titans 59–0. The following week, he collected four solo tackles and made his first NFL sack on quarterback Josh Johnson in the Patriots' 35–7 in over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Wembley Stadium in Week 7. In Week 10, Chung earned his first NFL start and recorded five combined tackles during a narrow 35–34 loss at the Indianapolis Colts.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung finished his rookie year with 37 combined tackles (25 solo), two sacks, a pass deflection, and an interception in 16 games and one start.


title: Patrick Chung

text: The Patriots finished atop the AFC East with a 10–6 record. On January 10, 2010, Chung appeared in his first NFL playoff game as the Patriots were defeated 33–14 by the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Wildcard Game.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On January 15, 2010, it was reported that defensive coordinator Dean Pees would not be renewing his contract or returning to the Patriots. Head coach Bill Belichick took over defensive coordinator duties for the season. Chung competed for the job as the starting strong safety against Brandon McGowan and James Sanders. He was officially named the starting strong safety to start the regular season, along with free safety Brandon Meriweather.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung started in the Patriots' season-opener against the Cincinnati Bengals and collected a career-high 16 combined tackles (12 solo) in a 38–24 victory. On October 4, 2010, Chung made five combined tackles and returned an interception by Chad Henne for a 51-yard touchdown to mark the first score of his career. He also blocked a punt and a field goal as the Patriots routed the Miami Dolphins 41–14 on "Monday Night Football" in Week 4. In Week 6, he collected 13 combined tackles (five solo) in a 23–20 victory against the Baltimore Ravens. The following week, Chung made a tackle before exiting a 23–20 victory against the San Diego Chargers after injuring his knee. He was sidelined for the next two games (Weeks 8–9) due to the knee injury.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung finished his second NFL season with 96 combined tackles (72 solo), nine pass deflections, three interceptions, and a touchdown in 14 games and 13 starts.


title: Patrick Chung

text: The Patriots finished atop their division with a 14–2 record, clinching a first-round bye and home-field advantage. On January 16, 2011, Chung made his first NFL start in a playoff game and recorded four solo tackles during a 28–21 loss to the New York Jets in the AFC Divisional round. With 1:14 left in the second quarter, Chung made the decision to call an audible on a punt and opted to receive a direct snap from the long snapper on a trick play instead and attempt to gain four-yards for the first down. He botched the direct snap and recovered the fumble for no gain at New England's 37-yard line. The mistake proved costly as the New York Jets capitalized on their field position and scored a touchdown in four plays and 41 seconds to enter half time leading the Patriots 14–3. Chung accepted responsibility for the mistake and stated it was his decision to call for the direct snap. He explained that he called the audible after discovering the Patriots had an eight on six advantage with their blocking scheme.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung entered training camp slated as the starting strong safety and was officially named the starter to begin the regular season, opposite free safety Brandon Meriweather. On September 18, 2011, Chung made five combined tackles during a 35–21 victory against the San Diego Chargers in Week 2. He exited the game in the third quarter and returned with a hard cast around his thumb in the fourth quarter. Chung was inactive for the Patriots' Week 3 loss at the Buffalo Bills after undergoing surgery to repair his fractured thumb. On October 30, 2011, he collected a season-high 13 combined tackles (ten solo) and broke up a pass in the Patriots' 25–17 loss at the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 8. Chung was sidelined for seven consecutive games (Weeks 10–16) after suffering a foot injury.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung finished the 2011 season with 62 combined tackles (37 solo), four pass deflections, an interception, and a sack in eight games and eight starts.


title: Patrick Chung

text: The Patriots finished atop of the AFC East with a record of 13–3, clinching a first-round bye and home-field advantage. They went on to defeat the Denver Broncos in the AFC Divisional Round and the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game. On February 5, 2012, Chung started in Super Bowl XLVI and recorded six combined tackles and a pass deflection in the Patriots' 21–17 loss to the New York Giants.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Defensive coordinator Matt Patricia retained Chung as the starting strong safety, alongside free safety Steve Gregory. Chung started the first six games of the season before sustaining a shoulder injury and missing four games (Weeks 7–11). During his absence, he was replaced by Devin McCourty, who was moved from cornerback to safety. Upon his return in Week 11, Chung was named the backup strong safety behind McCourty and was limited to 65 defensive snaps in the next four games (Weeks 11–14). On December 23, 2012, Chung made four combined tackles, two pass deflections, and intercepted two passes by Chad Henne during a 23–16 win at the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 16. The following week, Chung collected a season-high six combined tackles and deflected a pass in the Patriots' 28–0 victory against the Miami Dolphins in Week 17. Chung finished the season with 44 combined tackles (29 solo), five pass deflections, and two interceptions in 12 games and eight starts.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On March 12, 2013, the Philadelphia Eagles signed Chung to a three-year, $10 million contract with $4 million guaranteed. He was reunited with Eagles' head coach Chip Kelly, who served as Oregon's offensive coordinator during Chung's last two years.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Defensive coordinator Billy Davis held an open competition to name two new starting safeties. The competition included Chung, Kenny Phillips, Colt Anderson, Nate Allen, Kurt Coleman, and David Sims. Head coach Chip Kelly named him the starting free safety to begin the season, along with strong safety Nate Allen.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung started in the Eagles' season-opener at the Washington Redskins and recorded seven combined tackles in a 33–27 victory. He was sidelined for two games (Weeks 4–5) due to a shoulder injury. In Week 6, Chung made two combined tackles before exiting the Eagles' 31–20 win at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the third quarter after aggravating his shoulder injury. He missed another two games due to the injury (Weeks 7–8) and lost his starting role to rookie Earl Wolff. Chung regained his starting role in Week 11 and started the last six games of the regular season after Wolff sustained a knee injury. On December 29, 2013, Chung collected a season-high ten combined tackles (five solo) during a 24–22 win at the Dallas Cowboys in Week 17. He finished his only season with the Eagles with 59 combined tackles (39 solo) and three pass deflections in 12 games and ten starts.


title: Patrick Chung

text: The Eagles finished atop the NFC East with a 10–6 record. On January 4, 2014, Chung made four solo tackles in the Eagles' 26–24 loss to the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Wildcard Game.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On March 11, 2014, the Philadelphia Eagles released Chung after only one season, saving $2.25 million in cap space. His release was widely attributed to his injuries and issues in pass coverage. Problems with tackling and multiple incidents of accidentally delivering hits to teammates were also cited as possible reasons for his release.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On April 3, 2014, the Patriots signed Chung to a one-year, $1.10 million contract that included $120,000 guaranteed and a signing bonus of $60,000.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Throughout training camp, Chung competed against Duron Harmon for the job as the starting strong safety after the Patriots elected not to re-sign starting strong safety Steve Gregory. Head coach Bill Belichick named Chung the starter to begin the season, alongside free safety Devin McCourty.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On November 30, 2014, Chung collected a season-high 11 combined tackles (eight solo) during a 26–21 loss at the Green Bay Packers in Week 13. In Week 15, Chung made ten combined tackles (five solo), two pass deflections, and intercepted a pass by Ryan Tannehill in the Patriots' 41–13 win against the Miami Dolphins. He finished the season with 85 combined tackles (54 solo), with pass deflections, and an interception in 16 games and 15 starts. Pro Football Focus gave Chung an overall grade of 84.4 in 2014.


title: Patrick Chung

text: The Patriots finished atop in the AFC East with a 12–4 record, clinching a first-round bye and home-field advantage. On January 10, 2015, Chung started in the AFC Divisional Round and recorded seven combined tackles during a 35–31 victory against the Baltimore Ravens. The Patriots reached the Super Bowl after defeating the Indianapolis Colts 45–7 in the AFC Championship Game. On February 1, 2015, Chung started in Super Bowl XLIX and made a solo tackle in their 28–24 victory against the Seattle Seahawks.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On January 9, 2015, the New England Patriots signed Chung to a three-year, $8.20 million extension with $3.40 million guaranteed and a $2.40 million signing bonus.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On November 15, 2015, Chung collected a season-high 12 combined tackles (six solo) during a narrow 27–26 victory at the New York Giants in Week 10. He was inactive during the Patriots' Week 16 loss at the New York Jets after injuring his hip the previous week. He finished the season with 85 combined tackles (52 solo), nine pass deflections, and a forced fumble in 15 games and 14 starts. Chung received an overall grade of 88.4 from Pro Football Focus, which was sixth highest grade among all qualified safeties in 2015.


title: Patrick Chung

text: The Patriots finished atop the AFC East with a 12–4 record for the second consecutive season. On January 16, 2016, he made nine combined tackles during a 27–20 win against the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Divisional Round. The following week, Chung collected five combined tackles in the Patriots' 20–18 loss at the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On April 1, 2016, the Patriots signed Chung to a one-year, $5.70 million extension that included $1.80 million guaranteed and a signing bonus of $800,000. The agreement kept him under contract throughout the season.


title: Patrick Chung

text: During Week 5, Chung made seven combined tackles, a pass deflection, and intercepted a pass by Charlie Whitehurst during a 33–13 win against the Cleveland Browns. Two weeks later, Chung collected a season-high 11 combined tackles (seven solo) and two pass deflections in the Patriots' 27–16 win at the Pittsburgh Steelers. In Week 11, he collected nine combined tackles and sacked quarterback Colin Kaepernick in a 30–17 victory at the San Francisco 49ers. Chung finished the season with 91 combined tackles (52 solo), three pass deflections, an interception, and a sack in 16 games and 16 starts. He received an overall grade of 56.5 front Pro Football Focus in 2015.


title: Patrick Chung

text: The Patriots finished as the top seed in the AFC with a 14-2 record. They went on to reach the Super Bowl after defeating the Houston Texans 34–16 in the AFC Divisional Round and the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship Game 36–17. On February 5, 2017, Chung recorded five combined tackles and two passes defended as the Patriots defeated the Atlanta Falcons by a score of 34–28 in overtime to win Super Bowl LI. The Super Bowl featured the first overtime game and largest comeback in Super Bowl history.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Head coach Bill Belichick retained Chung and McCourty as the starting safety duo to open the 2017 regular season. In Week 10, Chung collected four solo tackles, broke up a pass, and returned an interception by Brock Osweiler for 30 yards in the Patriots' 41–16 win at the Denver Broncos. On November 26, 2017, he made ten combined tackles (nine solo) during a 35–17 victory against the Miami Dolphins in Week 12.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung finished the 2017 season with 84 combined tackles (71 solo), nine pass deflections, and a sack in 16 games and 11 starts. Pro Football Focus gave Chung an overall grade of 79.0 in 2017. His grade was the 42nd highest grade among all qualified safeties during the season.


title: Patrick Chung

text: The Patriots finished atop the AFC East with a 13–3 record and clinched home-field advantage and a first round bye. They defeated the Tennessee Titans 35–14 in the AFC Divisional Round and the Jacksonville Jaguars 24–20 in the AFC Championship to secure their second consecutive Super Bowl appearance. On February 4, 2018, Chung started in Super Bowl LII and made six combined tackles before exiting the game with a concussion. The Patriots were defeated by the Philadelphia Eagles by a score of 41–33.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On March 19, 2018, the New England Patriots signed Chung to a two-year, $7.80 million contract extension with $5.12 million guaranteed and a signing bonus of $3.60 million, keeping him under contract through the 2020 season. Chung was also named a team captain for the first time.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung was injured early in the second half of Super Bowl LIII against the Los Angeles Rams, sustaining a "right hand or wrist injury." An air cast was put on his arm and he walked off the field. He did not return to the game, which the Patriots went on to win 13-3. After the game, he stated that he had broken his arm. On February 9, 2019, Chung underwent surgery on his broken forearm.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On April 12, 2019, Chung signed a one-year contract extension with the Patriots, keeping him under contract through the 2021 season.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On May 20, 2020, Chung signed a two-year contract extension with the Patriots through the 2023 season. On July 29, 2020, Chung exercised his option to opt out of the 2020 season due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung is of partial Chinese Jamaican descent. Chung's mother, Sophia George-Chung, is a Jamaican reggae artist who was popular in the 1980s. His father, Ronald Chung, was a music producer and Sophia's manager. Chung has his Chinese name (钟家庭, "Zhōng Jiātíng") tattooed on his right arm.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung was indicted on a charge of possession of cocaine in Laconia, New Hampshire, on August 21, 2019. This charge was conditionally dismissed, on January 13, 2020.


title: Patrick Chung

text: On October 26, 2021, Chung was charged with assault after allegedly pushing a woman to the ground, slapping her face, and breaking her phone outside her home in Milton, Massachusetts.


title: Patrick Chung

text: Chung and former teammate Nate Ebner are minority owners of Major League Rugby's team New England Free Jacks.


title: Platitude

text: A platitude is a trite, meaningless, or prosaic statement, often used as a thought-terminating cliché, aimed at quelling social, emotional, or cognitive unease. The statement may be true, but its meaning has been lost due to its excessive use.


title: Platitude

text: Platitudes have been criticized as giving a false impression of wisdom, making it easy to accept falsehoods:


title: Platitude

text: A platitude is even worse than a cliché. It’s a sanctimonious cliché, a statement that is not only old and overused but often moralistic and imperious. ... [P]latitudes have an aphoristic quality, they seem like timeless moral lessons. They therefore shape our view of the world, and can lull us into accepting things that are actually false and foolish.


title: Platitude

text: Platitudes often take the form of tautologies, e.g., "it is what it is", making them appear vacuously true. But the phrase is used to mean "there is no way of changing it", which is no longer a tautology: "Structuring the sentiment as a tautology allows it to appear inescapable." At the same time, some phrases that have become platitudes may provide useful moral guidance, such as "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Others, though widely trivialized, may be thought-provoking, such as "Be the change you wish to see in the world".


title: Platitude

text: The word is a borrowing from the French compound "platitude", from "plat" 'flat' + "-(i)tude" '-ness', thus 'flatness'. The figurative sense is first attested in French in 1694 in the meaning 'the quality of banality' and in 1740 in the meaning 'a commonplace remark'. It is first attested in English in 1762.


title: Platitude

text: In philosophy, platitudes are beliefs or assertions about a topic that are generally accepted as common sense. In some approaches to conceptual analysis, they are taken as a starting point. Conjoining the platitudes on a topic may give a Ramsey sentence. Analyzing platitudes is part of the Canberra Plan of philosophical methodology.


title: Cast (band)

text: Cast are an English indie rock band formed in Liverpool in 1992 by John Power (vocals, guitar) and Peter Wilkinson (backing vocals, bass) after Power left The La's and Wilkinson's former band Shack had split. Following early line-ups with different guitarists and drummers, Liam "Skin" Tyson (guitar) and Keith O'Neill (drums) joined Cast in 1993.


title: Cast (band)

text: Emerging from the Britpop movement of the mid-1990s, Cast signed to Polydor Records and their debut album "All Change" (1995) became the highest selling debut album for the label. Further commercial success continued with the albums "Mother Nature Calls" (1997) and "Magic Hour" (1999), however a departure in sound on the band's fourth album "Beetroot" (2001) was met by a poor critical and commercial reaction and contributed to the band's split two weeks after its release.


title: Cast (band)

text: The band re-formed in November 2010 and released their fifth album "Troubled Times" in November 2011. Bassist Peter Wilkinson confirmed his departure from the band in March 2015, after abruptly leaving a previous tour in December 2014. He was replaced on that tour and in the band by Power's frequent collaborator Jay Lewis, who would also feature on their sixth album "Kicking Up the Dust", which was released on 21 April 2017.


title: Cast (band)

text: Noel Gallagher of Oasis described watching the band live as being like a "religious experience" and they were labelled "The Who of the 90s". It has been suggested that the name "Cast" was taken from the final word on The La's eponymous album (the song "Looking Glass" ends with the repeated line "The change is cast"); John Power has since confirmed this to be true, despite previously playing the link down to coincidence.


title: Cast (band)

text: John Power was previously the bass player, backing vocalist and only constant member along with Lee Mavers in The La's. He left the band on 13 December 1991 after becoming frustrated with the ever-increasing number of aborted studio sessions, having played essentially the same set of songs since 1986 and emerging as a songwriter in his own right. Power later commented that by that point he was more interested in his own songs "than anyone else’s".


title: Cast (band)

text: Having switched from bass to rhythm guitar whilst residing at Brucklay House – a near derelict squat in Mossley Hill, where the seeds of legendary dance label 3 Beat Records were sown, Power began jamming with friends and with an ever-changing line-up began to form Cast. The first addition to the band was ex-Shack bassist Peter Wilkinson who had seen Power performing acoustically at a free festival in Liverpool, and who Power had seen around town.". Embryonic lineups of the band, featuring several guitarists including Ged Malley, ex-La's members Barry Sutton and Cammy and drummer Russell Brady started gigging in mid 1992 and supported the likes of Pele and The Stairs. Power would later state that he was never happy with these lineups. Unhappy with the band and the demos recorded with Who sound engineer Bob Pridden, he split the band up and extricated himself from his Go! Discs contract in Summer 1993, with whom he was still signed to following his departure from The La's and set about forming a new lineup with Wilkinson.


title: Cast (band)

text: The first new member to be recruited was Keith O'Neill who had previously played in The Empty Hours, The Windmills and Tommy Scott's pre-Space band The Australians and who Power had seen playing in local band The Windmills, fronted by Howie Payne later of The Stands and then guitarist Liam 'Skin' Tyson, who Wilkinson knew from college and had previously played in Pyramid Dream. When approached to join the band, Tyson initially declined as he had sold all of his musical equipment to teach canoeing at an outdoor centre in Alston in Cumbria. Tyson, who witnessed one of the band's early London shows and commented that "John had these songs, but not the band", joined the band in November 1993 and the new lineup played their first gig in Hull in January 1994.


title: Cast (band)

text: Within months the band secured high-profile support slots with Elvis Costello on two UK tours, including 2 nights at the Royal Albert Hall and Oasis. It was during the tour with Oasis that Polydor head of A&R Paul Adam, surprised that the band had not already been snapped up, approached the band to sign them. The band signed to Polydor on 13 December 1994, three years to the day that Power left The La's.


title: Cast (band)

text: The band released their debut single "Finetime" in July 1995, which went straight in at No. 17. The follow-up single "Alright", a song originally written and performed a handful of times whilst still in The La's under the original title "Fly On" became the band's first Top 15 hit in the UK, peaking at No. 13 in the singles chart.


title: Cast (band)

text: The band's debut album "All Change", released October 1995 was produced by John Leckie who had previously worked with The Stone Roses and The Verve and had also previously worked with Power in The La's. The album shot to No. 7 in the UK charts, reaching double platinum and went on to become the fastest selling debut album in the history of the Polydor label, outselling the likes of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Who and The Jam. A further two singles were taken from the album in "Sandstorm" (#8) and "Walkaway" (#9), both top ten hits.


title: Cast (band)

text: A stand-alone single was released in October 1996 titled "Flying", which reached No. 4 on the UK singles chart, giving the band their highest chart position in the UK yet.


title: Cast (band)

text: With their second album "Mother Nature Calls", released April 1997 the "rockier material was now sounding looser and cockier in a Stonesy or Faces-ish way and the moodier tracks awash with melancholic atmosphere". The band worked again with John Leckie. The album peaked at No. 3, reaching platinum and stayed in the Top 40 for over 6 months. The album spawned three top ten hits in "Free Me" (#7), "Guiding Star" (#9), "Live the Dream" (#7) and one top twenty hit with the 4th single from the album "I'm So Lonely" (#14), a ballad written during a period of bleak loneliness in a Japanese hotel room.


title: Cast (band)

text: Power revealed that the album title was supposed to be tongue in cheek, because "Mother Nature" is always calling because of man's mortality, but also because he was on the toilet at the time he came up with the name. Although The Daily Telegraph proclaimed "Employing the spiritual terms of Power's lyrics, Cast may be the perfect Taoist band. They don't seem to try. Cast just are.", the album received largely mixed reviews in the press, Power later blamed this on the fact that it was more of a slow burner than the more instant "All Change" and claimed that a number of critics later told him that repeated listens had changed their perceptions of the album.


title: Cast (band)

text: By the time the band set to work on their third album, "Magic Hour", released May 1999 the Britpop movement was faltering – a number of Cast's contemporaries, such as Kula Shaker and The Seahorses had disbanded, Suede and Mansun were experiencing a drop in record sales from their previous efforts and label mates Shed Seven and Medal had been dropped by Polydor. Amid the changing musical climate, the band enlisted Gil Norton who had previously produced The Pixies and the band moved towards a heavier riff based sound. Power described the album as "21st century rock'n'roll" and "Walt Disney doing Quadrophenia".


title: Cast (band)

text: The first single from "Magic Hour" was "Beat Mama", with the band using loops and samples on the record for the first to give the material a more modern feel, Power described the song as "a call to everyone, a beat for everyone to move to, like the old Kia-Ora advert with the dog and the crows". The song became the band's last top ten hit, peaking at No. 9. In a chart now awash with teen pop the album shot to No. 6. A second and final single was taken from the album "Magic Hour", which stalled at No. 28. Momentum was lost due to a lack of touring and Power also later criticised the choice of single, suggesting the band should have gone with something more uptempo. A planned third single was scrapped after disagreements between the band and label. Following the release and short lived promotion of the album, Power stated that he believed with three albums under Cast's belt that a chapter had finished.


title: Cast (band)

text: Power began writing in early 2000 for the follow-up, "Beetroot", released July 2001. Although the band were initially set to work with John Leckie, Power met producer and programmer Tristin Norwell who he was interested in working with, as he was "up on now, the sounds of now and someone who I can talk to with an acoustic". The pair worked on the album together for 3 months before moving to another studio, where other members of the band contributed. Bassist Peter Wilkinson was not present for much of the recording due to the birth of his son, guitarist Skin Tyson mostly featured only as rhythm guitarist and most of the drums were cut up and looped. The album was based largely on loops and featured heavy use of horns and flutes and deliberately moved away from the bands guitar sound, as Power claimed the band "wanted to come back with something that feels fresh and enticing", describing the material as being groovier and talked of having a desire of "combining this sort of Marley and funkadelic stuff or Sly and the Family that I’ll get into as much as I get into Townshend and Lennon".


title: Cast (band)

text: Only one single was released from the album, "Desert Drought" which stalled at No. 45 in the charts. The album fared worse, crawling to No. 78. Following the cancellation of a planned UK Autumn tour due to "internal band circumstances", Cast split in August 2001 just one month after the release of the album. It had been rumoured in the UK tabloid press that the band had been dropped by Polydor and that Power had walked out of the band. However, a spokesman for the band at the time denied the band were splitting, that they were merely taking time out to work on solo projects. John Power released a statement to deny any rifts in the band and that this was "just the beginning of a new musical chapter", but would later admit that there were many internal differences in the band by the end, that “some of the band didn’t like it (the album "Beetroot") and looking back, it should have been a solo album" and that half of the band didn't want to be involved any more. In 2013, Power admitted that the album was "still a slight bone of contention with the rest of the band. They’ve never got over it".


title: Cast (band)

text: Power revealed that "when Cast split, it was the same as when The La's fell apart. You pretend everything is okay, but it's not. I was really down, really depressed".


title: Cast (band)

text: Following the split, John Power released a solo album entitled "Happening For Love" in 2003 through Eagle Rock Entertainment and 2 further solo albums more in the acoustic folk vein through Tanuki Tanuki, a label set up by former La's A&R man and his then manager Jona Cox. He has toured regularly as The John Power Band (which has featured Steve Pilgrim of The Stands and Jay Lewis and Nick Miniski of the 2005 lineup of The La's) as well as performing solo acoustic shows. In 2005, Power played a series of gigs with newly re-formed The La's. The band didn't showcase any new material and have not been heard from again.


title: Cast (band)

text: Peter Wilkinson, along with the band's live keyboardist Paul Ellison joined Echo & The Bunnymen and appeared on the 2005 album Siberia before leaving shortly after to rejoin the re-formed Shack. In 2002 he released a solo album via The Viper Label under the guise of Aviator with help from O'Neill, Paul Ellison and former La's guitarist Paul Hemmings. In 2003 Wilkinson and O'Neill briefly joined Kealer with Manchester singer-songwriter Jason Kelly and then set to work with ex-Stairs guitarist Carl Cook on a follow-up to the first Aviator album in early 2004 which was seemingly shelved. He then formed the short lived DC-10.


title: Cast (band)

text: Wilkinson has also recorded and toured with a number of other artists including Ian McCulloch and The Hours and more recently has started composing music for TV commercials.


title: Cast (band)

text: Keith O'Neill, following stints with Aviator and Kealer went on to work as part of the management team at Deltasonic Records before going on to work as a tour and production manager with bands such as the now-defunct Liverpool band Dead 60s, Babyshambles, Art Garfunkel, Lostprophets. and Foals.


title: Cast (band)

text: Liam Tyson joined Robert Plant's band, Strange Sensation in early 2002, touring Plant's album Dreamland before appearing on and co-writing the follow-up Mighty ReArranger. He then set about working on his Men From Mars project in 2004, originally set to feature Wilkinson and O'Neill, with others members of Strange Sensation.


title: Cast (band)

text: Power undertook a "Cast Acoustic Show" tour in June 2010, where he played a set of Cast songs along with new tracks written over the past year for a potential new Cast album. On 22 June, it was officially announced by "NME" that the band were to re-form, with plans to work on new material. The band toured the UK in November and December to mark the 15th anniversary of "All Change". A deluxe edition of "All Change" was released on 25 October that year, to tie in with the re-union and 15th anniversary of the album, containing the original album re-mastered plus b-sides, outtakes, demos and live recordings.


title: Cast (band)

text: On 6 November, John Power appeared on British TV show "Soccer AM", and stated that Cast would be starting work on a new album in early 2011, and that it would be released via Pledgemusic.


title: Cast (band)

text: Cast released their fifth studio album, "Troubled Times", produced by John Leckie, initially as a download to pledgers through Pledgemusic on 2 November 2011, with a physical release in March 2012. The album featured drummer Steve Pilgrim, who also completed a short tour with the band in December 2011. The future of original drummer O'Neill is uncertain with the band, as he is regularly unable to take part in recording and touring due to work commitments as a tour manager. In response to a fan's query on Twitter, he stated that a tour in early 2012 should feature the original line-up unless he is "called upon by a major client".


title: Cast (band)

text: The band released new song "Baby Blue Eyes" as a free download on 13 November 2014 from an as yet unrecorded and untitled album due for release in 2015. The band embarked on a UK tour in December 2014, with drummer Steve Pilgrim replacing Keith O'Neill. Peter Wilkinson abruptly left the tour after the first night of the tour in Hull due to "personal reasons", and was replaced the following night by former La's guitarist Jay Lewis. Keith O'Neill re-joined the band on the tour on 14 December, following the cancellation of the remainder of Johnny Marr's US tour which he was tour managing. During the tour, Power commented that Wilkinson "won't be back for a while he has some personal issues".