Mutantes - band and solo member albuns (Brazil)

Arnaldo Baptista is a key figure in Brazilian rock. A classically trained pianist, he is considered to be the link between the tropicalista rock of the '70s and the Brazilian rock reborn in the '80s. His seminal group Os Mutantes is a piece of history in Brazil that has transcended the music to expand its range of influence through the habits and identity of several generations. The son of Clarisse Leite Dias Baptista, a pianist and concert artist herself and the first woman in the world to write a concert for piano and orchestra, Baptista wrote his first piano piece on sheet music at age seven. Later, together with his brothers Sérgio Dias Baptista and Cláudio César Dias Baptista and some friends, they took the path of rock & roll.
Arnaldo Baptista began to play bass in the group the Wooden Faces, a name that changed several times from O'seis to O Konjunto, and at last in 1966, it went through its last mutation to Os Mutantes (the mutants). It was under this name that they became the most important rock band in Brazil. The initial formation was a trio, with Baptista (bass/voice), Rita Lee (voice/percussion/visual conception), and Sérgio Dias (guitar/voice). His brother, Cláudio César, took charge of the sound engineering. After their third album, Baptista took over on keyboards and Arnolpho Lima "Liminha" Filho (who is now a successful producer very requested in the studios) took the bass. Ronaldo "Dinho" Leme, already an occasionally hired addition, took charge of the drums. The group remained with this formation until mid-1973, when Lee left the group. In the next year, Baptista did the same, to record his solo album Arnaldo Loki? Baptista ( 1974); it is considered a masterpiece and the decade's milestone.
In 1977, Baptista began a new period. With a recently formed band, Space Patrol, renamed for Patrulha do Espaço, he kept his performances only in the city of São Paulo. His fans from outside the city could only get to know this underground phase a decade later, when the albums Faremos Uma Noitada Excelente... (live, 1987) and Elo Perdido (1988) were released.
The decade of 1980 came with new changes. Baptista became hospitalized for psychiatric disorders and threw himself off the third floor of the Hospital dos Servidores Públicos. Surviving with consequences, he spent a painful four-month recovery period at the hell's station of that hospital. By and by, he got longer permits to leave the hospital for his home, until he refused to return. Aided by his future wife, Maria Lúcia Barbosa, and radio host Sônia Abreu, Baptista woke up for life again. He began a series of solo shows, entitled Singin' Alone, in which he presented himself playing piano and violão. The shows yielded an LP under the same title, released in 1982 by label Baratos Afins and was reissued in CD format by Virgin Records in 1996. The CD brought an unpublished bonus track of Baptista singing his hit "Balada do Louco" for the first time.
From 1982 to 1984, Baptista was retired from the stage due to an accident. During this period, he traveled through the worlds of literature and visual arts, along with music. In 1995, Virgin Brasil reissued the Cyborg Valvulado, signing a contract with Baptista for the reissue of Singin' Alone and future release.

Arnaldo Baptista was the most important Mutantes former member. He created the band, was the most important composer and his ideas turned Mutantes in a great band.
Unfortunately in the 70's he became a victim of drugs and his carrer and life turn into more and more problems quickly.
After the end of his marriage with Rita (She was his first girlfriend !) the situation deteriorated more and more. Arnaldo was interned in mental hospitals many times. In the last one, in 1981 he jumped from 4th floor and went in coma for months. This results in several brain injuries
It is very surprising that after 2 years he could again to walk and talk and even to sing !

Lóki? is the first solo album from Arnaldo Baptista, the keyboardist, bassist composer and singer of the Brazilian band Os Mutantes. It was released in 1974 after a supposed nervous breakdown and it is considered one of the best albums in the 1970s Brazilian music scene. The album expresses his angst towards the height of post-modern society, along with the suffocating aspect of modernity: pollution, superpopulation, loneliness, etc.
Nowadays, Arnaldo lives with his wife Lucinha Barbosa, in the city of Juiz de Fora, where he spends most of his time painting, singing and writing songs. After the reunion of Os Mutantes, and its great importance in Brazilian rock music, Arnaldo's career seems to have a new perspective.

A precious jewel kept hidden from mortal ears for almost 20 years - this album was not released after being recorded in 1973 because the label feared a commercial failure. Well, maybe they were right considering the time and that Mutantes' work was far ahead the so-called 'common taste'.
Losing one of their founders, the charismatic singer Rita Lee the task to record this album fell on the shoulders of two remaining members - brothers Dias Baptista who laboured with guests and friends to achieve the feat. Perhaps, without the Lee's bias to pop they felt more secure to trail the road they wished and from which we could take a glimpse in some tracks in previous albums.
Ah! The always cited influence of Yes, EL&P and others - it seems correct but it happened for other bands and also added more power to the album; nothing to regret, instead those influences were things to rejoice. But Mutantes kept their own lines, their own standard along with the main parts of the songs. One will not find a torrent of keyboards and odd singing; they were still Mutantes! There is a good dosing of most conventional instruments: piano, acoustic and electric guitar, bass and drums; together with the whispering voices of Sérgio and Arnaldo dividing the vocals.
Title-song is purely progressive, catchy, almost cheesy, but in general very pleasant; there are references going from Ravel's 'Bolero' to Stones' 'Satisfaction', like they were showing clearly their influences.
'Rolling Stones' is more rocky and a certain smell of old Mutantes' songs may be attractively felt; 'Você sabe' (You know) is agreeable, easy, listenable; 'Hey Joe' is another reference-song, this time to Hendrix, meaning they never fell apart from the classical rock; 'Uma pessoa só' (A lonely person), a soft track that tells much about the personal problems of Arnaldo Dias Baptista, with drug addiction and mind collapses, is in reality a sad song; 'Ainda vou transar com você', despite the awful title-name - something like 'I'm gonna really make love with you', is audible and agreeable.
The flow of the songs shows a half-way to sorrow and darkness, although they could seem joyful when one isn't concerned about the lyrics and the atmosphere that probably surrounded the studio during recording. Anyway, this is an album that deserves a place in any prog music collection.