Gal Costa [Cinema Olympia] cover

Gal Costa [Cinema Olympia]

Released

Only a few months separate Gal Costa’s two albums from 1969, but while the prior featured psychedelic flourishes, the latter album is wholly doused in acid. The album might serve as Tropicália’s full-throated riposte to what was emanating from San Francisco at the time, blowing the likes of Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane out of the water. With Lanny’s flamethrower guitar work front and center and Gal’s sweet vocals turning into a jungle cat roar, the album ranges from hard rock blasts (see opener “Cinema Olympia”) to the buzzing MENA stomper “Tuareg.” “Objeto Sim, Objeto Não” might be the defining psychedelic song of the era: it evolves from Echoplexed groans and feedback into a swinging big band number before melting back down into primordial noise, with Gal strutting through the sonic madness in her unflappable style.

Andy Beta

Suggestions
And the Birds Flew Overhead cover

And the Birds Flew Overhead

Elysse Thebner Miller, Mary Lattimore
Gilberto Gil cover

Gilberto Gil

Gilberto Gil
Mutantes cover

Mutantes

Os Mutantes
Dreamin’ Wild cover

Dreamin’ Wild

Donnie & Joe Emerson
Muito Sol cover

Muito Sol

Ricardo Dias Gomes
Tudo Ben cover

Tudo Ben

Various Artists, Jorge Ben
Caetano Veloso cover

Caetano Veloso

Caetano Veloso
Robson Jorge & Lincoln Olivetti cover

Robson Jorge & Lincoln Olivetti

Robson Jorge, Lincoln Olivetti