"Hearing Os Mutantes for the first time was one of those revelatory moments you live for as a musician, when you find something that you have been wanting to hear for years but never thought existed." - Beck on Os Mutantes
The story of Os Mutantes is perhaps one of the strangest in the entire history of rock music, and has served as heady inspiration for artists as varied as David Byrne, Beck, Sean Lennon, and Nirvana. Imagine a 1960’s Brazilian rock band on a weekly television program disguised as aliens, witches, or conquist-adors performing surreal hymns to such bizarre figures as Don Quixote (or at other times: Genghis Khan and Lucifer) while tossing massive nets and giant rubber caterpillars across their audience. Add the fact that they had the courage to perform a fusion of traditional Brazilian rhythms with psychedelia at a time when the “MPB” (the Brazilian music establishment) were openly hostile to the wild sounds of American rock ‘n roll, provoking even further outrage by fashioning their own handmade musical instruments, constructed out of such common household objects as rubber hoses, cans of hot chocolate, or bottles of bug spray. Finally, they did all of this under the watchful eyes of a brutally repressive right-wing military dictatorship, as they were regularly censored by the government while performing alongside such musical revolutionaries as Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso (who, like many artists in Brazil at the time, were imprisoned and exiled for their political stance).
We want to celebrate a band and culture that most people in America know little about, for in an era overrun with fear and conformity, the music of Os Mutantes is needed now more than ever.
We are currently trying to raise money to make this very unique and exciting documentary. Please enjoy the trailer for now. If you want to invest in this film - please contact
nancy@americangirlproductions.com