There have been stunning films about surfing, like Riding Giants, and also at least one masterpiece about the slums of Rio - City of God. This documentary combines both. It focuses on the lives of two teenage boys, Fabio and Naama, and their dream of escaping the violence of Rio’s slums by carving out a career as surf pros. The only obvious alternative is a life of crime in the pay of drug gangs in the favelas, where the statistics say 15,000 are killed by guns in Brazil every year. The boys are, the film implies, surfing to save their lives.

Sometimes it seems as though every bit of music from the past has been disinterred, no matter how obscure or outré it is. But, of course, surprises keep on coming and the Psychedelic Pernambuco compilation is a reminder that great stuff still lurks out there. Collecting material recorded for the Brazilian independent Rozeblit label, Psychedelic Pernambuco roams through weird folk, post-Tropicália strangeness, fractured instrumentals and more.

Judging a CD by its cover has always proved fairly reliable in my experience, but in this instance it also wouldn’t seem unreasonable. For this young Sao Paulo-born singer-songwriter did all the charmingly whimsical artwork herself and its gentle Surrealism (the featureless face that doubles as the silhouette of a tulip) does reflect the understated quirkiness of the music.

McCartney and Wonder. Jagger and Bowie. Mullard and Baker. Music history teaches us that the star collaboration doesn't always transmute into artistic gold. The Chairman of the Board himself, with a little help from Vandross, Streisand, Bono et al, had a spectacular misfire with Duets Vol 1. Mercilessly butchering many of Francis Albert's best-known songs, the results, artistically speaking, aren't so much a case of, “Yeah, I once recorded with Sinatra, you know,” as, “Number of copies: entire stock.

As New York gypsy punk live sensation Gogol Bordello tear into another Balkan rebel hoedown in front of a capacity Brighton crowd I'm reminded of an old Stones lyric, Jagger and Richards's 1971 classic "Dead Flowers": "When you're sitting there in your silk upholstered chair/ Talking to some rich folks that you know/ Well, I hope you won't see me in my ragged company/ You know I could never be alone". Gogol Bordello epitomise the rock'n'roll "ragged company", the scruffy outsiders.

Adrift (A Deriva), Brazilian director Heitor Dhalia’s third feature film, is a sensuous coming-of-age story as well as an ode to the Brazilian beach landscape of Buzios and the band of gorgeous bikini-clad teenagers who run wild in it. Although Dhalia says the film is not strictly autobiographical, he concedes that it partly mirrors his own childhood beach holidays near Recife and his parents’ divorce when he was 10.

This month's top releases are headed up by a brilliant covers album by Brazilian singer Seu Jorge, and the Manic Street Preachers and Richard Thompson on peak form. Elsewhere there is South African pianist Kyle Shepherd, Argentinian "eccentric mystic" Axel Krygier and dance music from Underworld and Superpitcher and "like a Humberside Randy Newman" Paul Heaton. Reviewers are Sue Steward, Joe Muggs, Russ Coffey, Peter Culshaw, Kieron Tyler, Marcus O'Dair, Bruce Dessau and Howard Male.

The dreadlocks are gone, the dark suit is gone, the acoustic guitar which was his faithful travelling companion during the four years as Brazilian Minister of Culture, is also gone. Instead, Gilberto Gil skipped on stage with a cool, short, grey haircut framing his beautifully sculpted features, wearing a white shirt and check trousers, and strapped on a Fender Stratocaster.