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12 Sep 2009 16:11

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Music: Saturday Mixtape: Os Mutantes, or why Brazilian music freaking rocks



Welcome back, insanely progressive Brazilian musical icons. We wanted to commemorate Os Mutantes' first album in 33 years, Haih Or Amortecedor, by looking back a little at music of their homeland. Warning: Four of these five songs are in Portuguese, but rule anyway.
  • 1. The females in the Tropicalia movement, including Os Mutantes’ Rita Lee (later a famous solo artist in her own right) and Gal Costa, had this wonderful way of blending their voices into the productions around them perfectly. On Costa’s “Lost in the Paradise,” there’s just as much quiet storm-style R&B as traditional Brazilian elements.
    2. “Telcar” is Os Mutantes’ first single from the new album. What’s surprising about it is that even though it clearly has modern, non-experimental production values (and only features one member of the original band), it still feels of another era in the best way possible.
    3. Caetano Veloso is one of Brazillian music’s greatest songwriters with a reach starting with Tropicalia and far into Brazilian popular music. He’s written hundreds of Brazilian standards, including “Soy Loco Por Tí, América.”
    4. The English lyrics to “Chuckberry Fields Forever,” a Gilberto Gil song performed by late-70s Brazilian supergroup Doces Barbaros, tell of how rock had a permanent impact on traditional Brazilian music. The music acts as evidence.
    5. Despite the fact that that this is a Giberto Gil/Caetano Veloso ditty, “Bat Macumba” is likely more known to American audiences for the Os Mutantes version, which played centerpiece to the band’s 1999 David Byrne compilation and is one of the band’s best-known songs. It loses little in Gil’s version. source
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13 Jun 2009 17:50

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Music: Our Saturday mixtape: From Kraftwerk to projectors that are dirty

  • 1. It’s weird how much influence Kraftwerk wields, and how few people talk about it. They literally wrote the template for electronic music but don’t get constant adoration. “Pocket Calculator” is early synthpop perfected.

    2. Chiptune music is clearly influenced by Kraftwerk, and 8 Bit Weapon, led by Seth Sternberger and represented here by “Bit ‘n’ Run,” is a strong example of the form.

    3. Wow, “Bitte Orca” by the Dirty Projectors sure lived up to the hype, didn’t it? And they did it while making it look easy. “Useful Chamber” is – in our opinion – the album’s high point. It’s like Of Montreal’s “Skeletal Lamping” with asides that actually make sense.

    4. We’re convinced that whereever Gang Gang Dance’s “House Jam” is playing, there’s a massive party going on. And of course, someone forgot to invite us.

    5. There’s a lot of versions of Os Mutantes’ “Baby” floating around, but this one, with its garagey edges, is our favorite. Rita Lee’s 1971 acoustic version is also worth your time. source

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