Diamnada Galás on the politics of music, voice, reverberation, darkness, harshness, poetry, tragedy, isolation & more ...

Diamnada Galás on the politics of music, voice, reverberation, darkness, harshness, poetry, tragedy, isolation, limitation.... composing

Historia, Historiografia, Brizola ...

 ''A verdade é que Leonel Brizola foi, como se dizia antigamente, um subversivo e dialético historiador. Em A história da Irlanda Engels dizia que a historiografia mais bem paga é a que melhor falsifica a história para atender os desejos e propósitos da burguesia. Não é preciso dizer mais nada, nem me foi perguntado.''

Gilberto Feliserto Vasconcellos

R. Mutt - Konkret Dance 1986-89 (New Release out Dec 5, on Slum Dunk Music SDM 15)

R. Mutt - Konkret Dance 1986-89

Konkret Dance 1986-89 is the unreleased first album by Brazilian post-punk quartet R. Mutt from Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The record features a collection of 15 songs recorded between 1986-89 taken from their only two cassette tapes, respectively self-titled 1 & 2.

R. Mutt was an experimental post-punk / electronic group formed in 1986 by Bruno Verner on vocals, guitar, keyboards and sampling (also on Tetine, Divergência Socialista, Ida & os Voltas), Karla Xavier, on vocals, keyboards and percussion (also on AKT), Bernardo Rennó on drums, keyboards, electronics and percussion (also on Ida & Os Voltas), Marcos Basho on bass-guitar and Frederico Pessoa, bass-player on the first line-up. Some of the band’s recordings were included in the compilation Colt 45 - Underground Post Punk, Tropical Tapes, Lo-Fi Electronics and Other Sounds from Brazil 1983-1993, previously released on Slum Dunk Music in 2018. 

Making use of drum machines, synths and cheap samplers, R. Mutt's dystopian echoing soundscapes combined glacial electronic instrumentation with female and male half-spoken/half-sung vocals; folk introspection, dark basslines & metal percussion, with an urgent and poetic dada-surrealistic lyricism. 

 

Part of the same iconoclastic art-punk scene from Belo Horizonte of bands such as Divergência Socialista, Ida & Os Voltas, Sexo Explícito, O Último Número, Hosana Nas Alturas, Xiitas, Alma Ciborg, Os Contras, Sylvia Klein, Crime-Ópera amongst others, R.Mutt performed in several local underground bars, clubs, cinemas, universities and auditoriums; playing shows in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte & Juiz de Fora in venues such as Madame Satã, Espaço Retrô, Sesc Pompéia Complexo B, Crepúsculo dos Deuses, DCE da UFMG, Icbeu, PUC, Teatro Cenário among others.

Konkret Dance 1986-89 features distinct moments of the group, drawing on their electronic experiments through to their goth-punk-industrial and folk/acoustic side; revealing to the listener an unusual and overlooked Brazilian post-punk repertoire of atmospheric dub-landscapes, ambient, cosmic synth-pop and percussive experimentation, with a penchant for an icy & lyrical-melancholic expressionist post-tropicalist instrumentation. The album also includes performances of the band at the legendary São Paulo underground club Madame Satã in 1987, as well as other live registers recorded at Belo Horizonte's Rock Líquidoproject in 1988 held at PUC University's student union.

The group disbanded in 1989 with Bruno Verner later forming Tetine with Eliete Mejorado in the early 1990s in São Paulo, and vocalist & keyboard player Karla Xavier, forming the all-female post punk outfit AKT with Sandra Coutinho (of Mercenárias), Biba Meira (of Defalla) & Dequinha (Bruhaha Babélico), and later on, The Gilbertos with her partner Thomas Pappon (also on Fellini).

Produced and remastered by Bruno Verner at Mi Casa Es Su Casa. 

Art Cover by Eliete Mejorado – from an original concert poster of R Mutt from 1987.

* In memoriam of Karla Xavier, who have tragically died in a bicycle accident in London on October 4^th, 2020.

    

      R. Mutt (Bernardo Rennó, Marcos Basho, Karla Xavier, Bruno Verner). 1987