Feliz Ano Novo
Caetano Veloso - Irene
Now, usually I like to get pretty in depth when I review a CD here for MFR, with a big background on the artist and the scene their music comes out of, but in this particular case, I'm a little too tired and out of it at this point in the New Year to really go for it with this - I'd love to write a whole article on this particular artist, but I'm going to just give you a piece of the history, and let you guys do more of the digging yourself.
This is by Caetano Veloso, who was a major part of the Brazilian musical and cultural movement known as Tropicália: a cultural explosion in the late 1960s that mixed American and British psychedelic rock with Brazilian roots, European avant-garde, and experimental music - along with new movements in poetry (Brazilian concrete poetry), philosophers, graphic designers, film-makers, visual artists, theater, all of which pointed towards revolution in music and thought. They mixed high art and mass culture, and mocked the times and the military dictatorship under which they all lived. Tropicália also helped to bring about the end of Bossa Nova.
Veloso and Gilberto Gil were two of the main the protagonists of this movement - they met while Veloso was at the University of Bahia in Salvador, and were great musical and intellectual companions. Besides Veloso and Gil, other important figures in Tropicália are Gal Costa, Jorge Ben, Os Mutantes and Tom Zé. In 1968, the government passed a bill that outlawed all political opposition to the military, suspended individual political rights, closed congress, suspended habeas corpus and censored all press - Gil and Veloso both were both arrested by plain-clothes police, and spent months in prison without charge, then were sent home where they spent months under house arrest, when they were then told they had to leave the country. They were broke at this point, but were allowed to raise money for their trip by playing a concert and selling a live recording of it - however, they were not allowed to mention their imprisonment, house arrest or deportation in either the concert or the recording.
This song was written by Veloso about his sister while he was in prison and it is as sweet as anything I've heard from this period in Brazil. Rocking gently with Veloso's sweet voice and acoustic guitar, and fuzzed guitars and horns in the big moments, it sounds like a real melting pot of influences, which it really is. The song comes from a new compilation put together by the inimitable Soul Jazz Records - it comes with a great pair booklets that give a brief but very interesting history of Brazil and the movement (the image above is from the original Tropicália release, but I'm at the Airport and don't have a scanner to get the new art up here).
The new compilation will be released in February, to tie in with a huge Tropicalia festival at the Barbican in London, which runs for three months and features art, film, theatre related to the movement and nearly every artist and group that appears on the CD. You can pre-order the CD from Amazon, or purchase it from our friends at Forced Exposure.
Happy New Year! Robots in 2006!