MUTANTES

Hey friends, this album is a masterpiece of prog rock made in BRAZIL. This part of the world has many to give, this album is a good example of that. very good.........best songs: Dom Quixote, Não Vá Se Perder Por Aí, Banho de Lua (Tintarella di Luna) and Caminhante Noturno.

This album is as good or even better that the previous one. After the surprisal debut with some Tropicalia influence, Os Mutantes did a remarkable job in the evergrowing psychedelic field. Drums performances becomes more often here and craziness is all around. Symphonic stuff and clappings in "Dom Quixote", cither-like guitat in "Dia 36", Brazilian viola in "Dois mil e um" and some other weird souns compounds this incredible album. "Banho de Lua" became a hit and gives a sensation of a progressive-earlier-Beatles.

The second Mutantes' album keeps (or even exceeds) the excellence of the first. Arrangements made by maestro Rogério Duprat are astonishing. Duprat was really a very creative orchestrator and producer.

All songs are worthy but '2001 (Dois mil e um)' is tremendous: the combination of Brazilian moda de viola* with rockabilly is unique and works perfectly together with a spoon of space rock and psychedelism. A 4' masterpiece not needing more than it...

'Fuga no. 2' is beautifully bucolic, 'Caminhante noturno' is grandiose and 'Rita Lee' pleasantly humourous.

I'll give it 4 stars very appropriately for being a real landmark in the Brazilian prog-scene!

*Moda de viola: Brazilian country rhythm where the 10-string guitar (viola) with its exquisite tune is the centerpiece. Normally these modas are only instrumental being seldom sung.

This second album definitely holds more psyche sounds than their debut one which was very much Brazilian folk oriented. "Dia 36" is one example of this.

The band develops an original music full of complex arrangements but there is no sight of masterpieces here. It is of course difficult to judge such an old work so many years later (in those remote days, finding this type of recording was impossible in Belgium).

My feeling is that this album didn't age well at all. Weird sounds, some psychedelia combined with Brazilian fantasy are the essence of "Dois Mil e Um". Again, it is original (because of its origin) but can hardly be considered as a great track.

The whole album mixes these influences and even if the old-fashioned "Algo Mais" sounds funny, it doesn't move me. Of course, a song like "Fuga No 2" is a fine tune, full of these nice Brazilian rhythms that we all love and that make us dreaming about this wonderful country (which I am desperate to visit very soon, next month actually).

The cover version of an old Italian song is not bad either. "Tintarella Di Luna" is amazingly revisited with a fully disjointed approach. Surprising. But the childish "Rita Lee" might be funny, but again it doesn't speak to me at all.

It is obvious that the band listened considerably to Sgt. Pepper's. "Mágica" is probably the closest relation, but Lennon, Mc Cartney and Harrison were probably more inspired.Another fave of mine (with Fuga) is "Qualquer Bobagem" which features very good organ work and vocals à la Daltrey (during My Ge Ge Generation, if you see what I mean). Pleasantly melodic.

This album is better than their debut one and I will upgrade it from average (five out of ten) to good because of its inventive arragements. A psychedelic Brazilian snapshot of the late sixties.

Quite possibly, the most revolutionary brazilian rock album. However, some pretty lame songs keep Mutantes from being a masterpiece

One year after their tropicalista release, Os Mutantes finally return with a very different approach. This time, instead of following the steps of the bahianos Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso and their Tropicália, Os Mutantes decide to tackle the psychedelic rock, fairly influenced by international bands and the psychedelic music / rock in general. However, instead of simply adapting the psychedelic rock to Brazil, they blended it with brazilian music and culture, resulting in this unique release.

That adaptation is THE thing that made Os Mutantes so revolutionary: they were, possibly, the first modern rock band in Brazil and were, surely, the first psychedelic rock band in Brazil. Os Mutantes were the first ones to use distorted electric guitars, were the first ones to be deliberately psychedelic and the first ones to be progressive in Brazil and this album and their debut proves it quite well: the distorted electric guitars they used since before their 68 debut, so that's OK; the psychedelia can be seen here throughout this album and in later albums as a whole, so i don't think i need to prove this here; the progressive thing can be seen in the closing song of each side (Fuga n° 2 and Caminhante Noturno), where they were truly progressive (at least for the standards of brazilian music so far. . .).

That early usage of new instruments and music by Os Mutantes made them incredibly important because they opened a lot of doors to other brazilian bands and were very influential, although the recognition for those things would only come almost 20 years after the band ended, in the 90's.

They were so ahead of their time that they were usually booed and cursed in the festivals they played, because the audience didn't wanted psychedelic songs nor distorted electric guitars, they wanted protest songs, usually played with only one acoustic guitar and a singer, against the newly formed military dictatorship in Brazil (the ending of the song Caminhante Noturno is actually a recording of a crowd calling them, in a free translation, faggots or queers).

About the songs, musicianship and other features, there are somethings i would like to state:

SO, why such an important and revolutionary album, that brought psychedelia to Terra Brasilis and has a unique tune is not rated as a masterpiece? Because, though having some great songs, this album have some damn lame ones, that suck incredibly, being all of them in side 2.

Concerning the side 1, it is all great, from start to end. The only drawback in side 1 is Dois Mil e Um, which is, quite frankly, sub-pair to the side, though not being a bad song. As for side 2, well, its not so great. Though having the best song of the entire album (Caminhante Noturno), the other songs are just not as good: Banho de Lua and Rita Lee are just hard to sit through, but thankfully Mágica is a bit better, being actually pretty decent. Qualquer Bobagem rescues the album from the cheese pit it was put and, despite not being amazing, prepares the ground for Caminhante Noturno. The closing track finishes the album masterfully and is, like i said, the best song of the album.

The highlights go to: Dom Quixote, Não vá se Perder por aí, Dia 36, Algo Mais, Fuga n°2 dos Mutantes and Caminhante Noturno.

Grade and Final Thoughts

Revolutionary and amazing, despite the flaws, this album deserves a good grade. Too bad its not good enough to be rated as a masterpiece, thanks to Banho de Lua and Rita Lee, mainly. Because of that, 4 stars.

I don't know what's goin on here. This album starts good and it ends somewhat poor. After their debut masterpiece, Mutantes is a weak album. This one kept my interest from the beggining, but the songs at the Side 2 (except from Banho de Lua) are lame and boring stuff, so I felt quite disappointed about this record. This is a strange album. Well, the debut was really strange too. But this time, It's much more harder to get into the music. "Dois Mil e Um" tries to mix the Moda de Viola (brazilian folk rhytm) with rockabilly. It sounds good, but the parody-style vocals are annoying. Well, this is not their magnum opus, further after their debut album, a masterpiece.

True to their name, Os Mutantes began to mutate strangely after their debut album, leaning more heavily on the experimental and psychedelic side of their sound whilst never quite losing touch with their tropicalia roots. This second album finds them mutating into Brazil's answer to the Mothers of Invention, with a wild sense of humour and modernist classical musical influence shaking up the band's approach and prompting them to offer more unconventional song structures and compositions. Guest performances from Rogério Duprat on Magica and the duo of Zé do Rancho and Mariazinha on Dois Mil E Um further enrich the group's sound.