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Ze, Tom - Estudando o Pagode (special)

SKU 02-LUAKABOP1036878
One of the inventors of Tropicalia (and always one of the weirdest/oddest of them, he was quite little known outside of Brazil (and not that famous there either) until about a decade ago when David Byrne released a pretty terrific compilation on Luaka Bop, making him at least a household hipster name. This 2006 release is his next to most recent. "What a weird record! I'm so far from understanding this that I don't even feel OK reviewing it, but I've listened four or five times now and should be able to say something. I mean, it's an operetta, unfinished according to the booklet, and even though it's got English translations, I'm still not sure I'm following the characters, the story, etc. The reason I haven't really sat down and tried hard though, is the music, which is wildly inventive and weird and wonderful and engaging and has me going over it again just to find out what's happening (without worrying about the story). Odd even to compare this to his Tropicalia contemporaries - up against the "world-beat" niceties of recent releases by Caetano Veloso or Gilberto Gil, this is as misanthropic/eccentric-sounding as the Residents in their prime. The Residents with good beats. The Residents with good beats and sometimes a beautiful samba or bossa nova. If I'm grasping at straws a bit, it's because this record is so singularly part of a tradition and so apart from it that it's tough for me to find ways to describe it. Maybe another five listens will bring some focus, or maybe getting up into the lyrics will. But I'm not so sure that I'm not just chasing another obscure concept album, just like with so many God in Three Persons and Not Available types before it. Thoroughly enjoyable and thoroughly odd."-rateyourmusic.com


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