Tropicália bubbled up stateside from time to time in the ensuing decades, thanks to such musical misfits as Beck and David Byrne or the occasional compilation, but the music usually came devoid of context. That's now changed, thanks to UK-based Soul Jazz Records (best known for its badass Studio One reggae series). Its anthology Tropicália: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound squeezes together the best of the era and offers up a 52-page picture-filled booklet that retells the Tropicália story. You can bet the Soul Jazz folks know their shit just by the album's cover: red-tinted silhouettes of club-wielding policemen walking over the Brazilian lefty slogan "É Proibido Proibir" ("Prohibiting Is Prohibited," which Veloso turned into a song that's strangely missing from Tropicália).
From here, the joyous anarchy of Tropicália flows forth, as the artists hoot, pluck and shake out their charm. Os Mutantes easily live up to their reputation as the Brazilian Beatles -- dig their fuzz-guitar freakouts, bubblegum vocals and sugary prose on "A Minha Menina" ("My Girl"): "The silver moon hid / And the golden sun appeared" as a chorus shoo-be-doo-wahs in the background. Veloso strums out the wistful ballads that make him such a Royce Hall favorite but also stuns with the namesake anthem "Tropicália," a samba-bossa nova manifesto in which he emerges from a haze of blips to howl his movement to the world. Tom Zé is...Tom Zé -- strained duck vocals, moody fables of consumerism and "Jimmy, Renda-se," ominous bass-governed proto-funk with Zé breathlessly muttering "Janis Chopp" during the song's crescendo (a play on Janis Joplin translating as Janis Draft Beer). And unappreciated diva Gal Costa contributes three irrepressible tracks -- try "Sebastiana": coos, sighs and laughs driven by an out-of-tune guitar and bumpy Carnaval drums.
