TUBARÕES VOADORES

Review nº 214

Arrigo Barnabé - Tubarões Voadores

After the long praising review for his debut album, I don't have many words to describe this. Following the great zeuhlesque concept album, obviously a masterpiece and one of my top 5 albums of all time, Clara Crocodilo, Arrigo returns with Tubarões Voadores 5 years later. And what about this one? I can't say it's better than the previous one. The direction changed but it's still genial as damn. The proposal of the album was introduce dodecaphonism, weird prog narrative, and other absurd techniques on popular and different music including 80s rock, ethereal, synthpop, MPB, samba, and more. The results are tracks even more inacessible to the common listener. Just like the first album, the whole band and the female vocals are pretty good and unusual. It's a must check to avant-garde fans, but I still would reccomend Clara Crocodilo at first (very different style though).

Arrigo's followup to his landmark, avant album "Clara Crocodilo" took four years to release, and is one of the most ambitious albums I've come across. Arrigo Barnabe is a keyboardist and composer from Brazil who also sings, but that rough sounding, almost spoken delivery is not my thing. Especially the vocoder on two of the tracks. His debut from 1980 protested the military backed government at the time in Brazil, adding in sexual stuff helping to add to the Frank Zappa influence.

This followup album from 1984 continues with the focus on the vocals, in fact they are so theatrical both the male and female, and they seem to feed off each other. All in Portuguese of course. Over 80 people were involved with the making of this album including those in the studio. This is such an entertaining album. Ten tracks and forty minutes in length, it is a mixed bag and a step down from the debut in my opinion. A lot of silliness on both and plenty of horns but the vocals rule the day. I should mention that there are three orchestral conductors on this album, each on one track where we get plenty of strings in play.

Ambitious! But 3 stars is all I got. The cover art is worth 5 stars though!