Customer Reviews

Mutantes

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The first Mutantes album, Os Mutantes, is very good and a good introduction to this trio of goodliness. But if you want to jump in up to your waist and smother yourself with the beautifulness of Mutantes, buy this album.

One of the FINEST albums to be released during the worldwide psychedelic wave, it pounds pretty much every Beatles recording into the ground and then turns around and smashes everyone else. Forget Sgt. Pepper, forget Pet Sounds, forget everything you thought you knew and then put this on and break off the buttons, because if you're like me, you'll never want to stop listening to it.

My god, this is a great album. Start to finish. From the majestic opening music, more like a Roman ceremony than a rock album, to the last triumphant lament of the last song, you will be enthralled and your mind will develop new sections just to take it all in.

Thank goodness these albums are now available with English translations, but to tell the truth, you don't need them. Even if you don't understand what it is they're saying, you know that it is good. And let's be honest, psychedelic music is usually better when you can't understand what they're saying, because they're usually saying something highly laughable. Not here though. Look at the lyrics and understand we are dealing with an intelligence that far surpasses the dada of anything John and Yoko ever cooked up.

So, turn your back on the status quo idea of what is a landmark recording of the psychedelic era. and turn towards the Mutantes. And let them love you.

You know you want it.

I have been all over the world and have taken this album with me everywhere. Never gets old. Always gives you a great rush. The extreme example of good musical entertainment. If you have an open mind, regardless if you understand portuguese or spanish which if you know spanish you can pick up alot. Open minded, music lovers, explorers NEED THIS ALBUM AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I left my everything is possible CD with my friend Vicente in Sevilla, Spain and couldn't get it back. However, Os Mutantes second album is off the hook. Transcends time and space, if it was a woman I would buy the ring tomorrow. Um, Doish, Traish order it! Dois mil e um is my favorite track on the Cd however Qualquer Bobagem coupled with Noturno Caminhante is a one two closing punch. It'll knock you silly boy! I'm not crazy and I'm not obsessed. These guys are great...

The cover depiction of two matadors and a bride, guitars in hand and howling into microphones is pretty apt for this album.

Within the first few minutes a roaring crowd, angelic voices, funky guitars, flutes, "Bohemian Rhapsody"-style vocals, and swirling psychedelic march music replace eachother one-by-one, in a deliberately disorienting collage of craziness. No, the 1960s greatest nonconformists weren't the dour-yet-stoned Pink Floyd, nor smoky southern pacifist blues-bikers The Allman Brothers, nor the dandy incense-and-peppermints set, nor students of the Maharishi, nor even the art-damaged Velvets. They were from Brazil.

A group that has been long known to the sample-happy Beck and the cosmopolitan funkateer David Byrne, Os Mutantes evaded the radar of most of the English-speaking world. Psychedelic tropicalia in Portuguese, anyone? Byrne corrected this oversight somewhat with the "Everything is Possible!" compilation on his own boutique label, Luaka Bop -- a tasty sampler that draws heavily from the classic lineup of the first three Mutantes albums.

The core trio that would record the most classic and revered albums of the Os Mutantes canon stormed out of the gates with their debut self-titled album, a twisting and invigorating blast of South American funk, distorted guitars and sweet ballads.

The second album, "Mutantes," finds the band stretching out even further, delivering two instant classics: Fuga Nº II and the crawling flanged-and-processed vocals of Dia 36. Besides those immediate treasures, there is the hard charging Não Vá Se Perder Por Aí (which gives Magical Mystery Tour-era recordings a run for their money); the breathy, percolating Algo Mais, with its wicked bent-note descending guitar figure; trumpet fanfares, sawing electric fiddles that would make Papa John Creach proud, fearless psychedelic sound effects and sonic trickery, sweetly layered harmonies, and more.

Imagine a young, Latina Grace Slick fronting a supergroup formed from Santana and The United States Of America, anticipating Sergeant Pepper-era Beatles (but just a touch more sinister), and playing it all at hyperspeed. You're beginning to get the idea.

Don't worry if you can't speak Portuguese -- I can't either, and it has never once hampered my enjoyment of these headlong, mindbending records.

What we have here is a Brazilian equivalent of the Beatles: a few exceptionally talented kids who heads get pumped full of American (and British invasion) music as well as European pop, opera and Brazilian bossa nova, samba and folk and who then turn around and let loose with a torrent of wonderfully creative, unique and amazingly lush recordings very much in the American idiom. This is their 2nd album, which contains more original tunes than the first--even if the first thing you hear is from Aida or something. The last cut won song of the year and is quite the magnum opus. In between is "Rita Lee," a tribute to group's girl member (supposedly a descendent of Robert E.), boogie-woogie piano and just maybe Herb Alpert and Booker T. If I had to choose a favorite disc it would be this one, but I would recommend starting with the first, Os Mutantes, which was the one that left me dying in anticpation for the second only to have my expectations exceeded.

Yes, it's mostly in Portuguese, but I've reached that point where you worry that knowing for sure what they are saying might be disappointing.

Os Mutantes created some of the most fun, melodic, and rhythmic music of the 1960s Brazilian music scene. Two men and a red-headed woman (which apparently caused some scandal at the time; apparently some people wondered what a nice sweet girl was doing with two "bizarre" men) named Rita Lee pounded out some incredibly inventive and catchy pop music that integrated Brazilian music with western psychedelic pop. The results often surprise. Sometimes they shock.

The transition from "Dom Quixote" (an ominous pastiche of vocals intermixed with canned crowd noise and orchestra) to the infectious "Nao Va Se Perder Por Ai" features Rita Lee (at least, I think it's Rita Lee) screeching high-pitched into a false start. The music never lets up. From deliciously creepy mellow music dripping with effects ("Dia 36") to happy skippy staccato rhythms featuring lyrics about astronauts ("Dois Mil E Um") to power pop ("Algo Mais") to all out freaky psychedelia ("Magica") the album pleases at every turn with sounds, words, and harmonies.

Os Mutantes liked to blend sounds with their music. For example, the parlour piano-driven story of Rita Lee's pursuit of love ("Rita Lee") breaks into sounds of Rita laughing and kissing following the blessed moment. For the chorus the harmonies go right into the nasal cavities producing a high-pitched singing animal timbre.

Mutantes kept recording throughout the 1970s, but the core group had dispersed. This group left behind three amazing albums, "Os Mutantes", "A Divina Comedia Ou Ando Meio Desligado" and this one. PolyGram released all three classics in 1999, but sadly, they appear to have gone out of print. Hopefully someone will revive this series and make them permanently available. Very little pop music ever reaches this level of fun, spontaneity, and catchiness. And all of this during the rule of a brutal military regime in Brazil.

Lastly, the band photo on the back of the CD case really makes it all worth it.

This is the true brazilian music. Highly criative, funny, experimental, and very, very psychedelic! Released in 1969, this record doesn't sound old-fashioned today. If Kurt Cobain loved them (he knew the group's records in Nirvana's brazilian tour), you're gonna love them too...

I can't write long...all I know is that this album is so supremely creative & innovative that I find I can't stop listening to it! One of the cool things is hearing riffs & tunes that predate or at least coincide with similar, more familiar songs. For example, recorded at about the same time or maybe before "Don't Pass Me By" by the Beatles, was "Rita Lee" by Os Mutantes...a far more wacky and tuneful song based on practically the same bouncy riff. Then there's "Nao Va Se Perder Por Ai", the riff of which is lifted straight off "Jeepster" by T Rex...except it was recorded 2 years before T Rex recorded "Jeepster"! Did Marc Bolan know about Os Mutantes? If only I had been turned on to this as a teenager, when my musical identity was still being forged. Kudos to Omplatten for bringing Os Mutantes, finally, to the United States!

The buffoon who wrote the last review is obviously a little bitter, as he is hiding in the kitchen at one of the best parties I have ever been invited to: Os Mutantes. Everyone is welcome, regardless of colour and creed, but bring a bottle (or something stronger)...
If Beethoven were still around, I'm sure he'd find this album an intriguing listen (provided he could hear it). I sure that he wouldn't just dismiss it, anyway: its sophistication lies in its rough edges, clashing sounds and joyous experimentation, so it's not just background music for a chin-stroking session, or inoffensive classical music for pseudo-intellectuals (like our friend below).
Why is this cd $55?!

Bought the album on a whim, and I can't stop listening to it...really...it's turning into a problem. I can't work!

The Who in Portugese! Can't get enough.

What we have here is a Brazilian equivalent of the Beatles: a few exceptionally talented kids who heads get pumped full of American (and British invasion) music as well as European pop, opera and Brazilian bossa nova, samba and folk and who then turn around and let loose with a torrent of wonderfully creative, unique and amazingly lush recordings very much in the American idiom. This is their 2nd album, which contains more original tunes than the first--even if the first thing you hear is from Aida or something. The last cut won song of the year and is quite the magnum opus. In between is "Rita Lee," a tribute to group's girl member (supposedly a descendent of Robert E.), boogie-woogie piano and just maybe Herb Alpert. If I had to choose a favorite disc it would be this one, but I would recommend starting with the first, Os Mutantes, which was the one that left me dying in anticpation for the second only to have my expectations exceeded.

Yes, it's mostly in Portuguese, but there's still plenty to enjoy here. If you just have to know what they are saying, try looking it up at http://www.t-mail.com.