Fun Fun Fun Fest Preview: Os Mutantes
Saturday, November 6
Waterloo Park (403 E. 15th)
5:05 PM, Orange Stage
[info] | [tickets]
Apart from being a showcase of sorts for up-and-coming indie and punk bands, Austin's Fun Fun Fun Fest also provides a look at the history of underground music, presenting reunited groups whose place in the canon varies from assured to freshly revisited. Last year brought a blistering live set from Detroit/Vermont hard rockers Death and a no-stones-unturned dynamism from the Jesus Lizard.
This year, aside from the reunited Gories and Polvo, Brazilian psych-Tropicalia innovators Os Mutantes are part of the bill. Os Mutantes might be the earliest-dated group to grace the Fun Fun Fun Fest's stages, having been formed in 1966 in São Paulo by brothers Arnaldo (bass/keyboards) and Sergio Baptista (guitar) and vocalist Rita Lee. Along with Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, they are among the founding groups of the Brazilian Tropicalia movement, which was a blend of traditional folk music, psychedelia, avant-garde theatrics and politics - the latter aspect nearly getting them thrown out of the country in the late 1960s.
With Lee's departure in 1972 and Arnaldo's more acrimonious absence from 1973 onward, the group nevertheless soldiered on, recast as a heavier progressive rock outfit until finally dissolving in 1978. Their first several discs, such as Os Mutantes 1968, Mutantes, A Divina Comédia, and Jardim Elétrico (all released on Polydor) and Lee's 1972 LP Hoje É o Primeiro Dia do Resto da Sua Vida (Polydor) are disarmingly odd classics of Brazilian rock and of the international psychedelic sphere. Without Lee, they performed their first reunion show in London in 2006 - an evidential success, which was followed by international touring and last year's Haih or Amortecedor (ANTI-), their first record in over thirty years. Though a lot has happened since the halcyon and mind-expanding days of Os Mutantes' beginnings, this rare treat won't necessarily be a historical vacuum.
Os Mutantes: [myspace]
