Os Mutantes
Everything is Possible: The Best of Os Mutantes
[Luaka Bop/Warner Bros.]
Rating: 8.9
My obsession with Brazil has surmounted slowly, inevitably. In the past,
the breezy Getz/Gilbert typically found a way into my CD player
during summer mornings and tipsy twilights. Astrud Gilberto's voice sighs
like vaporized absinthe. Stan Getz's sax fills rooms with a thick tremble
from spittle and soul-- you can taste his moist reed and weathered brass.
From that record, I wandered onward to works of Antonio Carlos Jobim. It's
brilliant in that classic Cole Porter/ Billy Strayhorn jazz standard vein,
but my tastes run a bit more on the vibrant, experimental side. That's when
I stumbled onto Caetano Veloso like some lost Amazonian cove.
His delicate
pluckings are kisses and bliss pressed into vinyl. Lyrically, he soars into
heaven with Rimbaud, perfectly capturing the infatuations and frustrations
of urban life. I dug deeper into Brazilian history, treading through the
wake of the '60s. Finally, I found Os Mutantes. It wasn't necessarily
"difficult" to find them, as they've had a welcomed resurgence lately.
Thanks to Os Mutantes, my obsession is now full- blown, fevered by the
Mutantes' trippy psychedelic bossa nova- dolloped- with- Beatles- and-
Cream flavor.
I've had these obsessions before. After watching the films "Z" and "Jules
et Jim," I was convinced I would build a time machine and travel back to
post- war Paris. I yearned to wear wool earmuffs and zip around stone
streets in miniature Renaults. But this Brazilian obsession is getting out
of hand. I toil in the kitchen to whip up plates of xinxim de galinha and
feijoada. I wash it down with gulps of Guarana, even though the Brazilian
soft drink tastes like liquid chapstick. I close my eyes and see the
chunky, sweeping obsolescence of Brasilia's architecture.
Os Mutantes produced the bulk of their work in the late '60s. Their music
got them banned by the Brazillian government, adding punk cred to already
brilliant music. Perhaps the government took offense to titles like "Hail,
Lucifer." But most likely, they were just afraid of youth overthrowing their
asses. Ah, when music had purpose! Now "Hail, Lucifer" simply sounds like
the South American Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
It's comes as no surprise that two of the greatest songs on this retrospective
are penned by Caetano Veloso. "Baby" drifts over declarations of crushes and
nationalism, closing with the sublime lines, "I don't know, read it on my
shirt/ Baby, baby/ I Love You." (Though, I'm afraid my simple excerpts do
no justice to these lyrics and their plaintive delivery.) The freakout of
"Bat Macumba" is more direct and describable. A fuzzed guitar wiggles and
tweets like a robotic bird on LSD over bouncy bongo-pop. The effects are as
groundbreaking and experimental as anything George Martin and the Beatles
sculpted for Abbey Road. Mutantes invented the voice-box (bless them)
which you can hear in all its primitive glory on "Desculpe, Baby." Other
sonic creations include backward Wah-Wah.
However, it's not all aural wizardry and drug- induced noise. What makes Os
Mutantes so breath- taking, even 30 years later, is the effortless fusion of
infectious pop and rock revolution. It's like slipping the pill down the
throat of the dog of pop with a piece of ham. Now if we can only get David
Byrne out of the equation.
-Brent DiCrescenzo