New Music From Tom Ze on Calabash Music

Estudando O Pagode

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:16:45 -0600

Sociologists claim that in underdeveloped countries like Brazil, modernization is not a continous process, but one of fits and starts. In the middle of the Amazon jungle, people who have never even seen an electric light before get electricity and television at the same time. These extreme contrasts – between the wilderness and the new world of neon and fast food joints – became the subject of many of the songs of the Brazilian musical movement called Tropicalismo, of which Tom Zé was a member.

Fabrication Defect

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:16:45 -0600

Tom Ze is a veteran of the Tropicalist movement of Brazil whose best known exponents are Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. But while we associate those musicians with some highly commercial music these days, Ze has stuck with the movement's original thesis- a kind of musical surrealism with a decidedly political edge. Ze remains its great standard bearer-- His lyrics (provided in translation here courtesy of Trama Records) bristle with anger and wit, while his music retains the eclecticism of classic Tropicalismo.

Jogos De Armar (Fa硠Vocꠍesmo)

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:16:45 -0600

Postmodern Brazilian rocker Tom Zé puts odd shaped pieces together in the brilliant record "Jogos de Armar" (Jigsaw Puzzle). More magic from the Tropicalismo torch bearer!

The Best of Tom Ze

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:16:45 -0600

"Songs are inside of me, like pearls resting in oysters," -- Tom Ze