Tom Zé – Com Defeito de Fabricação - Fabrication Defect - 1998 MPB - Brasil - Sealed LP

B7 Defect 14: Xiquexique   

5:25

 

 

 

 

''Fabrication Defect, LP from Brazilian singer/composer Tom Ze, Ze was part of a cultural and musical movement in the 60s in Brazil called "Tropicalia," but while others involved — like Caetano Veloso — went on to stardom, Ze drifted into obscurity. In the late 80s, David Byrne went out in search of Ze, and got him back into music. This is Ze's 2nd recording since Byrne "rediscovered" him. Eyre says Ze continues to shine as a fresh and inventive pop composer.'' (NPR)

 

 

''Tom Ze, the slightly zany, incurably creative singer-producer-composer, is from Brazil, yes. He is, for the record, an important veteran figure in the Tropicalia movement of the late ’60s in which restless Brazilian musicians sought to interweave influences from pop and jazz and their native soil, to the dismay of purists.

 

It’s a pleasure to hear Ze’s studiocraft in action, with constructs of electric and acoustic instruments, stitched together with a taste for quirky juxtapositions, but always serving musical ends. Fittingly, Luaka Bop has announced plans for release of a remix of the project, which poses as a kind of comic sci-fi concept album. The theme: humanity’s “defects,” our weakness for desires and emotional vulnerability, are weighed against the inhumanity of a mechanized, media-dulled world. But you don’t have to understand the lyrics to get the feeling. It all ends in an accordion-abetted frenzy on the closing “Xiquexique.” Accidentally or providentially, Ze’s latest construction sounds up to date in the late ’90s, in an age when cut-and-paste and genre-shuffling are operative modes. But few do it with such natural, seductive ease. Tom Ze is one of a kind, and he’s back, thankfully.'' (JazzTimes)