Just found this amazing interview that Beck – an avid lover of Brazilian music – did with chief Tropicalist Caetano Veloso a year ago and which was now published on Beck´s website. In the interview Beck and Caetano speak on the ever increasing loudness in live performances and what João Gilberto did about it on his recent tour. Other topics are Bob Dylan´s love affair with Bossa Nova and how Beck was shocked when he found out that the cut-up aesthetics he created in some songs for his albums “Mellow Gold” or “Odelay” were already done by Os Mutantes 35 years earlier. This is one of the best talks on Brazilian music I read in a while. ESSENTIAL READING!!

Mombojó are from Recife in Pernambuco in the North-East of Brazil, a city renowned for its own take on Brazilian music. Mombojó have just released their third album “Amigo do Tempo”,  and it’s available for download at their site. Go to the link here, and click on “clique aqui“, it’s as simple as that.

Listening to this I can say it’s as strong, if not stronger, than their last 2 efforts, both of which were excellent. There are a huge amount of influences going on in their music, everything from samba, Mangue, surf (all huge in the north-east) as well as post-rock improv and Tropicalia. I had the pleasure of seeing them live a few years ago when they were promoting their first album and you could see then that something special was going on. The gig was curiously laid-back but woozily psychedelic at the same time. I recommend listening to this if you have any interest in current Brazilian rock.  Download and spread the word!

One area that has been neglected in Brazilian crate digging circles, or until recently that is, is the pre-tropicalia psyche scene. This scene is at its most derivative a straight copy of the North American nuggets garage rock scene, which is in itself pretty amazing as the dictatorship was in full swing at the time, so I can imagine the little outside culture that was coming through would have been enthusiastically  swooped upon by da youth. But there always a few bands or just a few tracks that have that famous Brazilian musical cannabalism, Os Mutantes, for example, were what happens when a Beatles cover band goes it alone. 

This scene was actually an extension of the iê-iê-iê movement and is the missing link between the jovem guarda and the Tropicalia movements. Jovem Guarda was a pretty insipid movement and produced some dreary rock ’n roll, though there are some really swinging corkers you have to sift through a lot of ”incy wincy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini” type covers.

So the example I have posted for you is by Wanderléa, who was one the most famous singers of the Jovem Guarda (young guard) and here she’s covering “Pushing too hard” by the Seeds, it’s a great version as you can really hear her local carioca (rio) accent with those phlegmy Rs as she belts out the (completely different) lyrics in Portuguese.

In fact this is a trend that has always existed in pop music in Brazil, take the tune of a current hit and sing totally different lyrics in Portuguese over the top, it’s a trend that continued in the eighties with rock band Capital Inicial covering Iggy’s “The passenger”, continued with Baile funk and even up till recently with Seu Jorge and Ana Carolina doing “the blower’s daughter” to pretty tortuous effect.

anyway here is Wanderlea:

vou lhe contar (pushing too hard)

I did want to do a compilation of this stuff for a label but the logistics are pretty impossible as most of it came out on labels like Phillips whose back catalogue now probably belongs to BMG/Sony or something, and would need a hefty advance. However I was reading this the other day about this guy Joel who’s got a super-hip record store in New York and is going to self-release “Brazilian Guitar Fuzz Bananas: Tropicalista Psychedelic Masterpieces, 1967–1976″ a collection that covers some of this scene. Self-release probably means grey area bootleg, but good luck to him. I, however, will be posting some more of this stuff during the week as I have a shitload of it on my hard-drive.