Grande Liquidação

The Mr Bongo label deserves some kudos for re-releasing this, the hard-to-find 1968 debut album from everyone's favourite world music eccentric, Tom Zé, which has in recent years only been available for those willing shell out large sums. It is marginally more normal than some of his later efforts – no kitchen implements, Hoovers or tape loops to be heard, but that may be a good thing for the Zé neophyte.

What it does have in spades is a kind of wonder and freshness, representing the slightly mad utopianism of 1968, manifesting in Brazil with the birth of tropicalia, that most cannibalistic of musical movements, with influences from the Beatles to bossa nova, via avant-garde ‘squeaky gate’ music. Zé had just moved to São Paulo at the time and the opener is an uplifting track with bells and swelling choruses, a hymn to that futuristic tropical city. The lyrics – ‘sin imported to the city centre, armed with rouge and lip-stick’ are more impressionistic than his later wacky surrealism, although there is a song about toothpaste here. Several tracks, notably ‘Gloria’ are packed with differing tempos and off-the-wall harmonies. The most famous song is ‘Parque Industrial’, recorded by Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil on the epochal Tropicalia: Panis et Circenses LP; ‘the industrial breakthrough can bring our redemption’ is sung to a psychedelic pop tune. No wonder David Byrne loved it so much he brought Zé out of retirement. It may well be the whole album was a few decades ahead of its time, and finally the world will appreciate this classic debut.