Pitchfork

My obsession with Brazil has surmounted slowly, inevitably. In the past, the breezy Getz/Gilbert typically found a way into my CD player during summer mornings and tipsy twilights. Astrud Gilberto's voice sighs like vaporized absinthe. Stan Getz's sax fills rooms with a thick tremble from spittle and soul-- you can taste his moist reed and weathered brass. From that record, I wandered onward to works of Antonio Carlos Jobim. It's brilliant in that classic Cole Porter/ Billy Strayhorn jazz standard vein, but my tastes run a bit more on the vibrant, experimental side. That's when I stumbled onto Caetano Veloso like some lost Amazonian cove.

His delicate pluckings are kisses and bliss pressed into vinyl. Lyrically, he soars into heaven with Rimbaud, perfectly capturing the infatuations and frustrations of urban life. I dug deeper into Brazilian history, treading through the wake of the '60s. Finally, I found Os Mutantes. It wasn't necessarily "difficult" to find them, as they've had a welcomed resurgence lately. Thanks to Os Mutantes, my obsession is now full- blown, fevered by the Mutantes' trippy psychedelic bossa nova- dolloped- with- Beatles- and- Cream flavor.

I've had these obsessions before. After watching the films "Z" and "Jules et Jim," I was convinced I would build a time machine and travel back to post- war Paris. I yearned to wear wool earmuffs and zip around stone streets in miniature Renaults. But this Brazilian obsession is getting out of hand. I toil in the kitchen to whip up plates of xinxim de galinha and feijoada. I wash it down with gulps of Guarana, even though the Brazilian soft drink tastes like liquid chapstick. I close my eyes and see the chunky, sweeping obsolescence of Brasilia's architecture.

Os Mutantes produced the bulk of their work in the late '60s. Their music got them banned by the Brazillian government, adding punk cred to already brilliant music. Perhaps the government took offense to titles like "Hail, Lucifer." But most likely, they were just afraid of youth overthrowing their asses. Ah, when music had purpose! Now "Hail, Lucifer" simply sounds like the South American Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

It's comes as no surprise that two of the greatest songs on this retrospective are penned by Caetano Veloso. "Baby" drifts over declarations of crushes and nationalism, closing with the sublime lines, "I don't know, read it on my shirt/ Baby, baby/ I Love You." (Though, I'm afraid my simple excerpts do no justice to these lyrics and their plaintive delivery.) The freakout of "Bat Macumba" is more direct and describable. A fuzzed guitar wiggles and tweets like a robotic bird on LSD over bouncy bongo-pop. The effects are as groundbreaking and experimental as anything George Martin and the Beatles sculpted for Abbey Road. Mutantes invented the voice-box (bless them) which you can hear in all its primitive glory on "Desculpe, Baby." Other sonic creations include backward Wah-Wah.

However, it's not all aural wizardry and drug- induced noise. What makes Os Mutantes so breath- taking, even 30 years later, is the effortless fusion of infectious pop and rock revolution. It's like slipping the pill down the throat of the dog of pop with a piece of ham. Now if we can only get David Byrne out of the equation.