For one dance-floor-filling hour Saturday night, Cafe du Nord in San Francisco stood at the intersection of one terrifically quirky sonic mash-up.

Forro in the Dark

Forro in the Dark, a Brooklyn-based sextet made up of mostly Brazilians, played a set of their own inimitable take on forro music, which in and of itself is pretty unique. Forro music comes from the unforgiving, rural landscape of northeastern Brazil and traditionally employs an accordion, triangle, and zabumba (a small bass drum with a huge sound).

Forro in the Dark has taken that twangy, country-fried sound and beefed it up for the dancefloor, replacing the accordion with the flute, mixing in two guitars, and adding two percussionists in addition to band leader and zabumba player Mauro Refosco.

It all makes for a sound that combines the a**-shaking powers of samba and batucada rhythms with Zydeco and spaghetti western, a hybrid that incites plenty of curious guffaws from the sweaty, packed dance floor.

All six members of the band shared vocals duties throughout the night, which kicked off with "Forrowest," a song that featured plenty of flute and a smattering of surf guitar.

The night's other standout track was "Asa Branca" which featured guitarist Smokey Hormel filling in on vocals for David Byrne, who appears on the band's debut album, The Bonfires of Sao Joao, as does Bebel Gilberto and Cibo Matto's Miho Hatori.

Local band Boca do Rio got the party started with an opening set of breezy, samba-flavored jazz and funk, which also featured loads of batucada percussion and samba rhythms.