No Fidelity Winter 2015 Issue 3

Page 28

Five Essential South American Psychedelic Rock Albums

By Ian Mercer

Several years ago, while bored during a high school summer vacation, I was surfing through the histories of my favorite musicians’ Twitter accounts. With Grizzly Bear being my favorite band at the time, my course inevitably took me to the page of Daniel Rossen (their fantastic guitarist). Near the beginning of his Twitter career, he’d posted a YouTube link to a Brazilian track called “Trem de Doido” by Clube Da Esquina. Since Rossen is one of my favorite guitarists, singers, and lyricists of all time, I took his musical recommendation quite seriously. I listened to the track. I listened to it again. All of a sudden, years had passed and I was still listening to the track. It’s a marvelous piece of work, and it sent me down a rabbit hole of late ‘60s and early ‘70’s Brazilian and Argentinian rock music that I’d love to share with you herein. These following albums are all quite long, but most of them consist of dozens of tracks that are all no more than three minutes long. It’s pretty easy to fathom what a lot of these tracks sound like before you listen. Imagine the music that a band would make if it formed in 1967 in Buenos Aires after falling in love with, and attempting to emulate the sound of, The Beatles. It’s a truly wonderful brand of music in that it combines common pop melodies and song structures with brilliant Latin and Brazilian harmonies.

Clube Da Esquina – Clube da Esquina (1972, EMI) This is the most famous and influential of any of the albums that will be mentioned here. “Clube da esquina” translates to “corner club,” and once you’ve listened, the meaning behind the name couldn’t be any clearer. It’s so easy to imagine bandleader Milton Nascimento and all of his friends settling down at a table on a ‘60s Belo Horizonte corner and just letting in all of the musical culture that passed them by. Clube da Esquina is the Brazilian equivalent of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in that it pulls a disparate array of musical genres together into one cohesive whole. Bossa nova, jazz, classic rock, American folk, Hispanic, and classical contributions are all present (just to name a few). Seriously, just listen to “O Trem Azul” and “Nada Será Como Antes” back to back and you’ll be able to see the diversity that Clube da Esquina offers. On the vocal front, Milton Nascimento delivers earth-shattering performances. His nimble, full-bodied voice is heaven to my ears. The wide range and unorthodox melodic choices lend a power to his ability that few vocalists have matched in my listening experience. Most notably, he is an absolute expert when it comes to allocating the right amount of dissonance. For example, that final cadence of “Os Povos” might just be the best blue note that I’ve ever heard. While Milton might be the star front man and lead vocalist, my favorite element of the band comes from the band’s main guitarist, Lô Borges. His exceptional ability is apparent from the very beginning of the whole album, when Lô crafts an ascending guitar chord progression that gives me frisson every time. His style is hyper-malleable, spanning from passionate strumming to smooth jazz tones to “21st Century Schizoid Man”-style shrieking guitar fuzz. Despite my tone thus far, Clube da Esquina isn’t perfect. There are a few tracks that completely miss (the strange “Saídas E Bandeiras” suite irks me every time) and a slow cooker (“Cais”) that should’ve been relegated to bonus track status, (especially when considering the fact that this album is already well over sixty minutes long). In the end, none of this previous criticism matters (both positive and negative), because of the track “Clube da Esquina 2.” Words can’t describe it. You need to listen to it. If every other track on the album were absolutely worthless, it would still be a great project because of the presence of this track. 26


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