Os Mutantes – Os Mutantes

I'm curious if anyone is up on recent vinyl versions of this that are out there. Official and otherwise. I purchased this LP twice in Japan and both copies are identical to the original Brazilian pressing (as far as label, cover etc) but are clearly too new to be originals. Wondering if anyone has any details on what is likely a fairly recent unofficial pressing. I may add it as an unofficial release to Discogs, but would love more info before I make an incomplete entry.

What are the differences between stereo and mono mix ? Which is considered better usually ?

The lead singer of this band, Rita Lee Jones, ed away on May,8th 2023, aged 76. Rest in Peace.

Hey, Thank You Flying Lotus for sampled this brazilian Gem.

Don’t worry! The sleeve is flimsy and thin! The quality of the sleeve looks like it has been printed on a printer, just the quality of a massed produced poor quality album! Some are laminated and some are loose leaf like a paperback book! Some have spines connecting the sleeves or some just have back and end!

In a worthy and truthful history of art, this should be considered as important as La Gioconda.

Over the years I’ve simply been plagued by folks saying that I had to listen to Os Mutantes, that the album was a whimsical psychedelic masterpiece, baroque pop that was fragile, opalescent, nearly porcelain, widely varied and inventive. At the time of this album’s release, the band Os Mutantes (meaning mutants) were touted as being just kids, though they were in fact geniuses, musically skilled, seeming to be all-knowing when it came to popish psychedelic meanderings, with one music reviewer calling them “frighteningly brilliant.”

Much was made of this trio of teenagers in flashy mod clothing from Sao Paolo, Brazil, comprised of Rita Lee, along with brothers Arnoldo and Sergio Baptista, though truth be told, the band is rather amateurish and highly beholden, to the point of plagiarism to many (the Beatles) who’ve tread this path before them. But it was 1967 when the trio began making waves, a time of inspiration, when the world of music was reaching in all directions for new ideas, sounds and original visions. That said, the music found on their first outing Os Mutantes is very awkward and challenging for most listeners, to the point where most people simply give-up out of frustration, lack of sustained interest, or boredom … where a mere four years later the band would be making worthless dull progressive rock.

While American’s were listening to the silky smoothness provided by the likes of Herb Alpert, Os Mutantes were exploring the darker more disturbing side of Brazilian politics and life, using their music in a subversive manner to comment on and inspire revolution and protests … sort of making them the Jefferson Airplane of the southern hemisphere, though without nearly as much talent or vision. Distortion is delivered full throttle on many of the ridiculously loud fuzzed out songs that seemed to deconstruct right before my eyes/ears, where I can imagine some might call this nothing short of chaotic joy. Nearly every song on this album is entirely different than any other, and there is absolutely no connection or foray from one song into another, leaving my head uncomfortably spinning.

I can assure you that in 1968, perhaps two other people on the planet thought that they got what Os Mutantes was doing, and Mutantes played relentlessly right to them. Nearly fifty-five years later, folks such as David Byrne (Talking Heads) has reissued their albums, claiming that this is forbidden fruit of the finest magnitude (my words, not his). Though I’d suggest that the album wasn’t very good in 1968 for the same reason it’s not very good today, it’s just that today we have these hipsters who will claim to find beauty anywhere, within any disconnected chord structure. I firmly believe that Os Mutantes had utterly no idea what was being related in American and British psychedelic songs, that the band merely captured the image (clothing) of the time, then capitalized on the re-envisioning those sounds, taking fuzzed out guitars and such to exceptional lengths while trying to convince the world that they were avant garde, that like Pee Wee Herman, they’d fallen off the bicycle on purpose.

*** The Fun Facts: Arnaldo Baptista, the original bassist, dove deeply into LSD during the 70’s and 80’, doing a bit of psychological damage, made worse by a rather long coma due to a fall from a rather high window.

Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain was famously a big fan, having once sent a letter to Arnaldo Baptista requesting that the band reunite.

Review by Jenell Kesler