Os Mutantes [1968] (CD - 1968)

Os Mutantes: Arnaldo Baptista, Sergio Baptista (vocals, various instruments); Rita Lee (vocals, tambourine).

Reissue producers: Johan Kugelberg, Jeff Gibson.

Includes liner notes by Fabio Rodrigues.

Os Mutantes: Rita Lee, Sergio Dias, Arnaldo Baptista.

The band's debut album, Os Mutantes, is far and away their best -- a wildly inventive trip that assimilates orchestral pop, whimsical psychedelia, musique concrète, found-sound environments -- and that's just the first song! Elsewhere there are nods to Carnaval, albeit with distinct hippie sensibilities, incorporating fuzztone guitars and go-go basslines. Two tracks, "O Relogio" and "Le Premier Bonheur du Jour," work through pastoral French pop, sounding closer to the Swingle Singers than Gilberto Gil. Though not all of the experimentation succeeds -- the languid Brazilian blues of "Baby" is rather cumbersome -- and pop/rock listeners may have a hard time finding the hooks, Os Mutantes' first album is an astonishing listen. It's far more experimental than any of the albums produced by the era's first-rate psychedelic bands of Britain or America. ~ John Bush

One of the embodiments of Brazil's crash into the counter-culture of the '60s, Mutantes (Mutants) weren't just a great pop-rock group, they were boundary-smashing revolutionaries. As part of that country's late-'60s Tropicalismo movement, the trio helped modernize distinctly Brazilian sounds, scuzzying the samba rhythms of Carnaval with fuzzed-up electric guitars, and blowing a weird avant-garde breeze into the smooth hair of conservative bossa nova culture. Rita Lee and the Baptista brothers (Arnaldo and Sergio) made music wholly reminiscent of REVOLVER-era Beatles, mixing in Stockhausian sonic collages, Zappa's sense of absurdity, and a Brazilian love of the groove.

The liner notes included in Omplatten's reissue of the band's self-titled 1968 debut describe the historical context for the band's importance, but the musical pleasure of OS MUTANTES is far less cerebral. Interpreting the songs of their Tropicalismo compadres (Caetano Veloso, Gilbeto Gil, Jorge Ben), they infused Brazilian folk forms with modern studio touches--brass fan fares, found-sound effects, psychedelic vocal harmonies, etc. It is essentially shagadelic mid-'60s pop, with Lee's innocent vocals dripping with irony and Rogerio Duprat's arrangements as forward thinking as anything that emerged from LA or London at the time. OS MUTANTES sounds as fresh as any recording of the period. minimize