What do Beck, Kurt Cobain and Brazil have in common?

Answer: Os Mutantes!

For Beck, the discovery of the 1960s Brazilian band Os Mutantes 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. I made records like Odelay because there was a certain sound and sensibility that I wanted to achieve, and it was eerie to find that they had already done it 30 years ago, in a totally shocking but beautiful and satisfying way’ (quoted in The New York Times, 2001). Beck’s album Mutations, containing the song ‘Tropicalia’, pays homage to the group.

Kurt Cobain even tried to reunite Os Mutantes in 1993 without success, writing a personal letter to band member Arnaldo Baptista. The band would finally play together again in 2006 in London. A reviewer for The Independent wrote of the show: ‘Long after the lights have come up, the crowd are still chanting “Mutantes! Mutantes! Mutantes!”… In a way, Kurt Cobain was lucky that Os Mutantes turned down that support slot – Nirvana getting out-rocked by a bunch of mad, middle-aged Brazilian hippies would have been a sight to behold.’ 

Os Mutantes were pioneers of the 1960s Tropicália movement in Brazil. Tropicália was a brief cultural explosion – encompassing music, theatre, poetry and other forms – that happened in the shadow Brazil’s 1964 coup and the dictatorship that followed.

Os Mutantes’ psychedelic cut-and-paste approach to music took in influences from all over the world: ‘In Brazil we were influenced by things like The Beatles and Picasso,’ founding member and singer/guitarist Sergio Dias explains. ‘But we didn’t know what The Beatles were singing about and we didn’t know the history of Picasso. We were in the middle of a very bad situation and we were responding to all of this. We only had bits and pieces of everything and so we formed this image of what rock and roll was supposed to be. Our music is like a patchwork quilt made up of all these different pieces from different places. We put all these elements together and just let them cook in this witches brew and that became our sound.’

Fellow Tropicália pioneer Gilberto Gil was closely linked with the group, playing with them prior to his arrest and subsequent exile in 1969. Other artists who have championed Os Mutantes include Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, Devendra Banhart and The Flaming Lips.

Os Mutantes perform with Porcas Borboletas at Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 18 July

Gilberto Gil performs at Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday 21 July

More information on Os Mutantes