by OS MUTANTES (Polydor, 1968)
Named after a comic book series of the same name, 'Os Mutantes' were formed in Sao Paulo around 1966. Brothers Arnaldo and Sergio Dias Baptista played bass and guitar whilst the beautiful (at the time) Rita Lee supplied the main vocals. By their late teens they had become Brazil's answer to the Beatles, regularly starring alongside their Tropicalismo contemporaries on television shows and at music festivals. They dressed in outrageous costumes and employed elements of fun in their performances, despite the underlining seriousness and political viewpoint to their music.

The first album, 'Os Mutantes', was recorded in 1968 under the guidance of Rogerio Duprat. Made up of their own material and unusual takes on other peoples' songs, it stands alongside Gal Costa's first LP as possibly the best Tropicalia record made. The most popular track, 'A Minha Menina' (recently covered by The Bees), is an infectious samba-rock song written by Jorge Ben, and a perfect example of their effortless juxtaposition of musical styles. Claudio 'The Fourth Mutant' Cesar was responsible for making their weird distortion pedals and units, which included an inverted version of a wah-wah pedal aptly named a "wooh-wooh". In the early Seventies, they were deported to France by the Brazilian military dictatorship and recorded a number of their hits in English, later surfacing on the 'Tecnicolor' LP. They went on to record many other LPs, and were increasingly influenced by drugs - Rita Lee apparently yearned to fill the Brazilian water system with LSD! DT

by ALAIN GORAGUER (1973)
If you first saw 'Fantastic Planet' as a child and thought it was strange, you'd still be amazed at how weird and freaky it is now. It's about the enslavement of human descendents on a planet inhabited by 39-foot tall aliens with blue skin, red eyes and crazy amphibian-like ears. The soundtrack is French orchestral-funk at its finest, made up of variations on the same theme throughout. Alain Goraguer's score to Rene Laloux's creepy award-winning film is a psychedelic masterpiece, perfectly accompanying Roland Topor's memorable drawings. Seemingly utilizing just about any playable instrument lying around the studio, Goraguer fills the gaps with recurring wah-wah guitars, clavinet, marimbas and flutes, backed by the occasional string section and choir. The high point is the last track on side one, "Les Hommes - La Grande Co Existence" a short, but perfectly structured avant-garde orchestral funk workout. Apparentely, the illustrative style of Topor has been pastiched on hip-hop artist Quasimoto's sleeves. DT

by WILLIAM KLEIN (1966)
Every now and then, a record will crop up which you fall in love with and really can't explain quite why. A lot of the time it's the sleeve design, and other times it might be a soundtrack to a film that you particularly dig. In the case of "Qui ete-vous, Polly Magoo?" it's both of the above.

The film 'Polly Magoo' is directed by French-Yank Vogue photographer-cum-graphic designer, film-maker, soundtracker man William Klein. His multi-tasking approach is akin to that of Fellini or Jodorowsky, two of the other biggest control freaks in poetic popular-culture. Klein went on to direct Mr. Freedom - a pop-artistic social-satire-on-fire, with a much coveted (in physical form) Serge Gainsbourg soundtrack EP. This folky fold-out die-cut promotional toy 7" is ,in my eyes, is a suitable sister record. Penned by Mr Klein himself under the guidence of main-man Michel Legrand, this folky summer-symphony begs comparison to tracks on Nico's Chelsea Girl LP - it's that sweet. AV

by SUNFOREST (Deram Nova, 1969)
The one and only Sunforest LP shouldn't really be included as an essential album, but as it contains the B-music folk-funk classic "Magician In The Mountain", we had to include it in our list. Ironically, this was the only track on the album that wasn't arranged by "multi-talented" musician and vocalist Terry Tucker (who is actually a woman, and leader of the band) but by the evidently more talented Phil Dennys. Apart from that (Sunforest's one moment of genius) the remaining tracks are nothing more than twee, faux-medieval nonsense. The cover is adorned with three lesbian-esque jesters fooling around in a cartoon forest, giving you a good insight as to what the majority of the music within sounds like. On closer inspection you realize this trio of flower-wielding hippies are actually the main performers in the band - Terry Tucker, Freya Hogue and Erika Eigen. Their liner notes are hilariously pretentious, rambling on about the Sun, and Moon, and Spoons (in June). "Lighthouse Keeper" appeared in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" which might interest some people. Still, the LP goes for about £100 now, and is worth every penny for "Magician In The Mountain" alone. DT

CRYSTAL TELEPHONE (Deram, 1969)
Those who thought rap music was born in The Bronx in the mid 70s should check out Terry Durham's 1969 UK LP on Decca. Competition was minimal in North Yorkshire when this Ernie Wise soundalike, wannabe-beat-poet picked up the mic. But in reality Terry Durham was more like Wakefield's answer to Serge Gainsbourg than the proto-Pitman. Name dropping Andy Warhol, Malcolm X, Picasso and Bob Dylan over a rip-roaring guitar and hammond jazz or dropping Edgar Allan Poe-esque Suicide notes over blues breakbeats. For every Gitane that Serge sparked-up Terry would be extinguishing another Lambert and Butler and in turn romanticising the joys of cigarette smoking in glorious stereo. There was his sensitive, melancholy side too. Durham wouldn't just wallow in self pity, he'd do the backstroke, 100 metre dash and win the gold medal for diving. For TD, every silver lining had a cloud. He later returned in a totally unrecognisable guise on two LPs with folk quartet Storyteller for which he also designed the record sleeves. AV