Interview: Os Mutantes | reviews, news & interviews
Interview: Os Mutantes
Interview: Os Mutantes
The coolest and strangest band of them all talk about aliens, madness and revolution
Friday, 16 July 2010
The mutants in regalia
Arnaldo Baptista of Os Mutantes is telling me why South American music can be so compelling: "It's the historical mix, Incas, black Africans, Europeans, beings from Outer Space." I beg his pardon. "Oh, yes, I have seen many flying saucers". Arnaldo is being perfectly serious and launches into his theory of Time (he has formulas and diagrams) which state that once humans go faster than the speed of light, we will be able to travel back to the past. He thinks will freeze himself cryogenically and be unfrozen when this is possible, travelling in the future to go to the past. He has theories about the Age of Fire (we are, he says, about to leave it). Then he goes into a rambling but detailed and convincing comparison of the psychic effects of Gibson and Fender guitar sounds.
Arnaldo Baptista of Os Mutantes is telling me why South American music can be so compelling: "It's the historical mix, Incas, black Africans, Europeans, beings from Outer Space." I beg his pardon. "Oh, yes, I have seen many flying saucers". Arnaldo is being perfectly serious and launches into his theory of Time (he has formulas and diagrams) which state that once humans go faster than the speed of light, we will be able to travel back to the past. He thinks will freeze himself cryogenically and be unfrozen when this is possible, travelling in the future to go to the past. He has theories about the Age of Fire (we are, he says, about to leave it). Then he goes into a rambling but detailed and convincing comparison of the psychic effects of Gibson and Fender guitar sounds.
You can't have a normal conversation with him. But then I imagine you couldn't have just chatted with Einstein about girls and football, either.
Explore topics
Share this article
more New music
Album: Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice
Tuareg rockers are on fiery form
Album: Fred Hersch - Silent, Listening
A 'nocturnal' album - or is it just plain dark?
Music Reissues Weekly: Linda Smith - I So Liked Spring, Nothing Else Matters
The reappearance of two obscure - and great - albums by the American musical auteur
The Songs of Joni Mitchell, Roundhouse review - fans (old and new) toast to an icon of our age
A stellar line up of artists reimagine some of Mitchell’s most magnificent works
Album: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology
Taylor Swift bares her soul with a 31-track double album
Album: Jonny Drop • Andrew Ashong - The Puzzle Dust
Bottled sunshine from a Brit soul-jazz team-up
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Record Store Day Special 2024
Annual edition checking out records exclusively available on this year's Record Store Day
Album: Pearl Jam - Dark Matter
Enduring grunge icons return full of energy, arguably their most empowered yet
Album: Paraorchestra with Brett Anderson and Charles Hazlewood - Death Songbook
An uneven voyage into darkness
theartsdesk on Vinyl 83: Deep Purple, Annie Anxiety, Ghetts, WHAM!, Kaiser Chiefs, Butthole Surfers and more
The most wide-ranging regular record reviews in this galaxy
Album: EMEL - MRA
Tunisian-American singer's latest is fired with feminism and global electro-pop maximalism
Music Reissues Weekly: Congo Funk! - Sound Madness from the Shores of the Mighty Congo River
Assiduous exploration of the interconnected musical ecosystems of Brazzaville and Kinshasa
Add comment