The Grass is Always Greener in Brazil: Os Mutantes

Os Mutantes (1968)

The only thing that ever stuck in my mind from a mix CD that my friend Harlow played for me last May (burned for him by our friend Marcus) was a curious bossa-nova based tune from the mid-60’s, sung in some foreign tounge (perhaps Portugeuese?), and featuring the rawest, wildest fuzz guitar riff I had ever heard. The only problem was, Harlow lost the CD and could never remember the name of the group who recorded this song, let alone the title of the song.

This May, Ben Schwabe began raving to me about this Brazilian group he found: Os Mutantes [The Mutants]. Telling me that they were a great influence on the famed Elephant Six Collective, I listened to their first album with him. And there it was – that fuzz guitar. How could you ever forget one of the greatest guitar tones you’ve heard in your life? (And the mix of the record makes sure you never forget it!) I immediately procured a copy of the disc from him.

The album, recorded and released in 1968 once the band became, along with Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, the stars of the burgeoning Tropicalia movement in Brazil (a blend of traditional Brazilian music, psychedelic rock and avant-garde poetry) sounds like nothing that had come before it. In fact, it sounds like nothing that came after it for about 20 years also! The record plays like a 36 minute version of Pink Floyd’s “Jugband Blues” – a bizarre yet coherent mixture of obscure lyrics, abrupt textural/tempo/key changes, studio experimentation, whining organs, lush acoustic guitars, that fuzz guitar, and a Salvation Army band gone wild. To my uncultured American ears, the Portuguese (and French) lyrics shroud the mysterious music in yet another layer of mystery, making for a listening experience unlike any other I’ve ever heard. I am not even offended by the fact that they band (Sérgio and Arnaldo Baptista, and Rita Lee) did not write all of the songs. I have not heard the originals of the cover songs, but I imagine that Os Mutantes made them completely their own, just from the brash experimentalism displayed on their original tunes. The two most infectious tunes are not even originals: “A Minha Menina” [“To My Girl”], the “mix CD” song, which alone is worth the price of admission for that fuzz guitar (true garage rock lovers take note), but the entire song is perhaps one of the songs I have had the most fun listening to in a while; same goes for “Bat Macumba,” whose lyrics feature nothing but the title (whatever that means), but rides a two-chord groove rooted in both traditional Brazilian music and Otis Redding’s “Respect,” topped with that fuzz guitar again, this time using an extreme tremolo effect, mixed louder than all of the other instruments and voices on the track. Elsewhere, songs like “Senhor F” and “Tempo No Tempo” echo the neo-music hall sound of the late-60’s Kinks (when translated, the lyrics of “Senhor F” reveal what appears to be a Davies-esque social commentary); “O Relogio” [“The Clock”] and “Le Premier Bonheur du Jour” [“The Day’s First Happiness”] are ethereal ballads; and the album is capped on both ends by the cut ‘n’ paste songs “Panis et Circenses” [“Bread and Circuses”] and “Ave Genghis Khan.”

With albums like this, who needs drugs? The listening experience is a trip in itself, more than the so-called “psychedelic” albums by most of Os Mutantes’ contemporaries. I’ll bet the Dead never would have been able to create and album that aurally describes the psychedelic experience more than this album has. Fortunately for all of us, Os Mutantes’ albums are readily available on CD and LP – thanks to the interest of fans like David Byrne, Kevin Barnes, and everybody’s favourite grunge icon turned grunge martyr, Kurt Cobain (who publicly requested that Os Mutantes reform and open for Nirvana). Sergio Dias Baptista currently leads a version of Os Mutantes, which judging by the YouTube videos, you should check out – but not before you own their first record, that is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2EKghlmIyQ – “Panis et Circenses,” live TV broadcast, 1969.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHC9xxICovo – Of Montreal cover “Bat Macumba,” live 2006.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbv3M-AdxC0 – Mutantes, Gilberto Gil and Orchestra (!) play Gil’s “Domingo no Parque” live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ohTi8lbeok – “A Minha Menina” – not a video of them performing it, but at least you can get it stuck in your head all week!