Artist: Os Mutantes
Album: Os Mutantes
Year: 1968
And now for something completely different.
Os Mutantes was a Brazilian quartet who played avant-garde tropicalia with big doses of psychedelia mixed in for good measure. I first heard about this band many years ago and I own a greatest hits album, but had never heard their self-titled debut before now.
I gotta say, I pretty much love this album. It takes so many chances, there are so many just flat-out oddball moments, but everything seems to make sense in the context of the album. Opener "Panis Et Circenses" sets the tone nicely with bright horns giving way to an almost funerary hymn, before the whole thing just kinda stops mid-song before starting back up again for a jubilant finish. "A Minha Menina" is a shuffling little tropical pop song with blissed-out guitar fuzz as punctuation. My favorite here is the dreamy "Le Premier Bonheur Du Jour" which sounds like a sister to The Kinks' "Village Green."
The big word I'll use for this album is "noisy." There are all these little melodies cutting in and out of the mix--Os Mutantes definitely uses a kitchen-sink approach toward their fractured, skewed pop music. Just when you think they've tried everything, they throw in little touches like clarinet and church bells on "Tempo No Tempo." And it somehow works.
No doubt Os Mutantes were an influence on artists like Beck later on, with their deconstructionist view of pop music. Their debut album is a fantastic slice of psychedelia, as good as anything recorded in the Northern Hemisphere during the period.
Rating: Worth repeated listens
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