Tom Zé

Quite incredibly, this is the first vinyl reissue of the earliest and best work by legendary Brazilian musician, Tom Zé. 'Grande Liquidação' was originally released in 1968, the same year Zé contributed to the Tropicália blueprint 'Tropicália: ou Panis et Circenses' alongside the perhaps better known Caetano Veloso, Os Mutantes, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and Nara Leão. His first LP was recorded shortly after moving to Sao Paulo from the regional capital Salvador, Bahia, and features a shocking wealth of ideas informed by the Dada movment, psychedelic rock, and imported American Funk, which he mixed with more traditional boss nova to create a wild unique form of exotic pop which earned him comparisons to a Brazilian Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart. Simply, nothing about this record feels conventional or quite like anything else you've heard, especially from this era. Each track feels like an attempt to try as much as possible, but not without keeping a sense of groove and cohesion. It's for no good reason that David Byrne signed Tom up for his Luaka Bop label in the early '90s after stumbling across his music in a Rio record shop, but this record is better than anything he's released since. It's a total essential for fans of exotica, Brazilian music or psychedelic pop.